Adobe interview experience Real time questions & tips from candidates to crack your interview

SDE - 1

Adobe
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3 rounds | 5 Coding problems

Interview preparation journey

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Journey
I took admission in DTU college in the computer science stream. I was advised by my seniors to practice DSA from the very beginning of B.Tech, but I did not take that seriously. Honestly speaking, I regretted not following their advice, and in my third year, I started doing coding. I had to increase my practice hours because I started late.
Application story
I applied for the post through the campus drive. After applying, I practiced hard for it, and the hard work paid off in the end.
Why selected/rejected for the role?
I think I was on point with my coding solutions to the questions asked in the interviews. I provided the optimal solutions and gave correct explanations to some theory questions asked.
Preparation
Duration: 2 months
Topics: Data Structures and Algorithms, Operating Systems, Computer Networks, Java
Tip
Tip

Tip 1: Even if you are stuck on a problem, just give it a try. The interviewer will definitely help you. 

Tip 2: Prepare Data Structures and Algorithms well. They mostly assess our problem-solving ability to find solutions for real-world problems. 

Tip 3: Be confident, don't be nervous. Maintain at least two projects on your resume.

Application process
Where: Campus
Eligibility: 7 CGPA
Resume Tip
Resume tip

Tip 1: Mention at least 2 projects.
Tip 2: Mention the skills in which you are perfect.
Tip 3: It should neither be too long nor too short.

Interview rounds

01
Round
Medium
Online Coding Interview
Duration50 minutes
Interview date10 Dec 2020
Coding problem2

It was in the morning. The first round was an online coding + MCQ round. It had three sections in total to be solved in 40 minutes.

1. NINJA’S ARRAY

Moderate
20m average time
80% success
0/80
Asked in companies
UberAppleAdobe

Ninja developed his own coding platform and he wants all the questions of the array to be uploaded on his platform. Now, he wants to create test cases of problems. But as usual, he uses his own ninja technique for selecting the array and call such arrays as 'Ninja arrays'. He has two arrays one of them has distinct integers (named as ‘ARR’) and another one contains arrays of integers (named as ‘PIECES’). According to him, if it is possible to make ‘ARR’ from ‘PIECES’ then that array is a 'Ninja array'.

Your task is to help Ninja to check whether we can form an array of distinct integers ‘ARR’ from an array of integers arrays ‘PIECES’. If it is possible you should return ‘True’ else return ‘False’.

Example:

Case 1:
Suppose given array of distinct integers ‘ARR' = [10, 35] and array of integers array ‘PIECES' = [ [35], [10] ]. So, we return ‘True’ as we can form such array-like first we concatenate [10], then [35] hence it is possible to make ‘ARR’ from ‘PIECES’.

Case 2:
Suppose if the array of distinct integers ‘ARR' = [ 2, 1, 3 ] and an array of integers array ‘PIECES' = [ [ 1, 2 ], [ 3 ] ]. So we return ‘False’ as we cant form such an array because we can’t change the order of [ 1, 2 ].
Problem approach

Applied knapsack approach to solve this problem.

Try solving now

2. Longest Common Prefix After Rotation

Moderate
30m average time
60% success
0/80
Asked in companies
IBMMicrosoftOLX Group

You are given two strings 'A' and 'B' where string 'A' is fixed. But you can perform left shift operations on string B any number of times.

Your task is to find out the minimum number of left-shift operations required in order to obtain the longest common prefix of string 'A' and 'B'.

Note:

Left shift is defined as a single circular rotation on the string after which the first character becomes the last character and all other characters are shifted one index to the left.
For Example:
If A = “an”, B = “can”.
After performing one left shift operation, string B becomes “anc”.
After performing two left shift operations, string B becomes “nca”.
Follow Up:
Can you solve this in linear time and space complexity?
Problem approach

First, I applied the Sieve of Eratosthenes to find all prime numbers in that range, and then applied dynamic programming to find the longest subsequence.

Try solving now
02
Round
Medium
Online Coding Test
Duration50 minutes
Interview date10 Dec 2020
Coding problem2

It was conducted in the evening, around 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM. The questions were a bit difficult. They were mainly from Data Structures, and there was a total of 2 questions.

1. Split Array

Moderate
0/80
Asked in companies
SalesforceDirectiAdobe

You are given an array ‘ARR’ of size ‘N’ and an integer ‘M’. You have to split the array into ‘M’ non-overlapping, non-empty subarrays such that the maximum of all the subarray’s sum is the minimum possible. Your task is to return the minimum of the maximum of all the subarray’s sum.

For example:
You are given ‘ARR’ = [7, 2, 6, 10, 8] and ‘M’ = 2. We split the array as [ 7, 2, 6] and [10, 8], the maximum of 7 + 2 + 6  and 10 + 8 is 18, which is the minimum possible.
Problem approach

First, sort the array and then apply the binary search algorithm to solve this problem.

Try solving now

2. Split Array Into Increasing Subsequences

Easy
15m average time
85% success
0/40
Asked in companies
OlaAckoAdobe

You are given an integer array/list ‘ARR’ of size 'N' that is sorted in ascending order. Your task is to return '1' if and only if you can split it into one or more increasing subsequences such that each subsequence consists of consecutive integers and has a length of at least 3. Else, return '0'.

Note: An increasing sequence is a sequence where the difference between ith and i + 1th number is 1 exactly. For example : 1, 2, 3, 4 or 3, 4, 5 or -1, 0, 1 are all increasing subsequences.

For example:

Given ‘N’ = 4 and ‘ARR’[] = 1, 2, 3, 4.
The answer will be ‘1’ because an increasing subsequence of [1, 2, 3, 4]  having length greater than 3 can be made.
Problem approach

Form a basic recursive formula that computes every possible solution and finds the best possible solution. We can see that the recursive solution has many overlapping sub-problems, which can be reduced in complexity using dynamic programming.
Recursive formula:
F(i, K) = { min of all values such that j < i [ max(Arr[i..j]) * (i – j + 1) – Sum(A[i…j]) ] } + F(j, K-1)
The bottom-up approach can be used to compute the values of sub-problems first and store them.
Here, dp[i][j] defines the minimum value that can be obtained if the array starts from index i and has j partitions.
So, the answer to the problem will be dp[0][K], where the array starts at 0 and has K partitions.

Try solving now
03
Round
Easy
HR Round
Duration30 minutes
Interview date10 Dec 2020
Coding problem1

It was in the evening. The interviewer first asked simple questions to keep me calm, and it was a nice interaction with her. The environment she created was very interesting, making it easy to answer.

1. Basic HR Questions

  • On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate yourself as a leader?
  • What makes you angry?
Problem approach

Tip 1: Research the company thoroughly.
Tip 2: Avoid any hesitation while giving your answers.
Tip 3: Try to give practical and optimized approaches that show professionalism.

Here's your problem of the day

Solving this problem will increase your chance to get selected in this company

Skill covered: Programming

How do you remove whitespace from the start of a string?

Choose another skill to practice
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