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SDE - 1

Adobe
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3 rounds | 8 Coding problems

Interview preparation journey

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Journey
Firstly I planned that I will start learning DSA in the first year but I could not. So i started from my third semester and along with DSA, I also learned development because that is what I wanted to be.
Application story
I was practicing DSA on a regular day when I saw a small advertisement kind of on Leetcode. I opened it and I got to find that company is looking for SDE-intern for some freshers. I applied for the role and after some rounds i got selected.
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 I was giving correct explanations to some theory questions asked.
Preparation
Duration: 3 months
Topics: Data Structures and algorithms, OOPS, DBMS, Operating System, Puzzles, Aptitude, Maths(Probability, Permutations, Number Theory)
Tip
Tip

Tip 1 : Be thorough with data structures and algorithms. Avoid just switching between different coding platforms according to people's suggestion instead pick one and stick to it(Leetcode worked for me!).
Tip 2 : Do not miss out on core subjects (for GS ,OOPs and Operating systems especially).
Tip 3 : Keep giving mock interviews (take at least 2 -3 prior to real one) ,it helps a lot to prevent last-minute interview anxieties and makes you feel prepared and confident.

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

Tip 1 : Choose the right format, it should reflect professionalism. Adobe blog suggests arranging your resume with your educational information at the top, followed by your grade-point average, professional experience, projects and any special interests and activities or achievements.
Tip 2 : If you do not have any prior experience, solidify your projects section(3-4 is a good number).Articulate your project description in a precise and crisp format.
Tip 3 : Come up with three reasons why you should be picked for the job in accordance with job's description —these will be some of the top traits you’ll want to emphasize in your resume.

Interview rounds

01
Round
Hard
Online Coding Test
Duration90 minutes
Interview date11 Sep 2019
Coding problem1

One coding problem was there which was of 3 hrs and 50 test cases were there. We need to pass all the test cases

1. Bursting Balloons

Moderate
40m average time
60% success
0/80
Asked in companies
Samsung ElectronicsAdobeMicrosoft

You are given an array 'ARR' of N integers. Each integer represents the height of a balloon. So, there are N balloons lined up.

Your aim is to destroy all these balloons. Now, a balloon can only be destroyed if the player shoots its head. So, to do the needful, he/ she shoots an arrow from the left to the right side of the platform, from an arbitrary height he/she chooses. The arrow moves from left to right, at a chosen height ARR[i] until it finds a balloon. The moment when an arrow touches a balloon, the balloon gets destroyed and disappears and the arrow continues its way from left to right at a height decreased by 1. Therefore, if the arrow was moving at height ARR[i], after destroying the balloon it travels at height ARR[i]-1. The player wins this game if he destroys all the balloons in minimum arrows.

You have to return the minimum arrows required to complete the task.

Problem approach

We can solve this problem using dynamic programming. 
First, consider a sub-array from indices Left to Right(inclusive). 
If we assume the balloon at index Last to be the last balloon to be burst in this sub-array, we would say the coined gained to be-A[left-1]*A[last]*A[right+1]. 
Also, the total Coin Gained would be this value, plus dp[left][last – 1] + dp[last + 1][right], where dp[i][j] means maximum coin gained for sub-array with indices i, j. 
Therefore, for each value of Left and Right, we need find and choose a value of Last with maximum coin gained, and update the dp array. 
Our Answer is the value at dp[1][N].

Try solving now
02
Round
Easy
Online Coding Test
Duration150 minutes
Interview date12 Sep 2019
Coding problem3

Three coding problems were asked

1. Counting Pairs

Moderate
35m average time
65% success
0/80
Asked in companies
OptumIBMUber

You are given a positive integer N and an equation 1/X + 1/Y = 1/N

You need to determine the count of all possible positive integral solutions (X, Y) for the above equation.

Note:

1. X and Y should be greater than 0.
2. (X, Y) and (Y, X) are considered different solutions if X is not equal to Y, i.e. (X, Y) and (Y, X) will not be distinct if X=Y.
Problem approach

I solved using bit manipulation techniques

Try solving now

2. Level Order Traversal

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

You have been given a Binary Tree of integers. You are supposed to return the level order traversal of the given tree.

For example:
For the given binary tree

Example

The level order traversal will be {1,2,3,4,5,6,7}.
Problem approach

Solve using recursion

Try solving now

3. Score After Flipping Matrix

Moderate
25m average time
75% success
0/80
Asked in companies
MicrosoftGoldman SachsSalesforce

You are given a 2 - D matrix, ‘MAT’, which consists of only 0s and 1s. Every row of the matrix is interpreted as a binary number, and the sum of all these “binary number interpreted rows” is defined as the score of the matrix, ‘MAT’.

You have to maximize the score by making any number of passes where a pass consists of choosing any row or column, and toggling each value in that row or column, i.e., changing all 0s to 1s, and all 1s to 0s. Your task is to return the highest possible score of the matrix, ‘MAT’.

Problem approach

It is simple matrix problem

Try solving now
03
Round
Easy
Face to Face
Duration45 minutes
Interview date12 Sep 2019
Coding problem4

1. Regular Expression Match

Hard
25m average time
80% success
0/120
Asked in companies
FacebookGrowwSAP Labs

Given a string ‘str’ and a string ‘pat’. The string s has some wildcard characters i.e ‘?’ and ‘*’.If any character is a ‘?’ we can replace that character with any other character. If a character is a * we can replace * with any sequence of characters including the empty sequence.  Your task is to determine if it is possible that we can make ‘str' = 'pat’ using appropriate conversions in ‘str’.For Example:Let str = “abc?" and pat= “abcd”We return true as ‘?’ can be replaced with ‘d’ and this makes ‘str’ and ‘pat’ same.Input Format:The first line of input contains an integer ‘T’ which contains the number of test cases. The next '2 * T' lines represent the 'T' test cases.The first line of each test case contains the string ‘str’.The second line of each test case contains the string ‘pat’.Output Format:For each test case return true if it is possible to modify string ‘str’ such that ‘pat’ is a substring of ‘s’ under given rules and conditions. Otherwise, return false.Note:You do not need to print anything; it has already been taken care of, Just implement the given function.The words do not contain whitespace.The string ‘pat’ contains only lowercase English alphabets.Constraints:1 <= T <= 101 <= pat.length() <= 2001 <= str.length() <= 200Time Limit: 1secFollow Up:Try to do this problem in O(M * N).

Problem approach

I solved using Kadane's algorithm

Try solving now

2. Puzzle

There are 2 trees in a garden (tree "A" and "B") and on both trees are some birds.
The birds of tree A say to the birds of tree B that if one of you comes to our tree, then our population will be the double of yours.
Then the birds of tree B tell to the birds of tree A that if one of you comes here, then our population will be equal to that of yours. How many birds in each tree?

3. Puzzle

There are ‘N’ horses running in ‘N’ different lanes numbered from 1 to ‘N’. You are given an array “FINISHTIME” containing ‘N’ integers where “FINISHTIME[i]” represents the time taken by the ith horse to complete the race.
You are now given ‘Q’ queries, each containing two integers each, ‘L’ and ‘R’. For each query, return the time taken by the fastest horse amongst the horses with numbers {L, L + 1, L + 2, …., R - 1, R} to complete the race.
Note:
The fastest horse is the one that takes the minimum time to finish the race.

4. Group Anagrams Together

Moderate
0/80
Asked in companies
Dell TechnologiesPayPalArcesium

You have been given an array/list of strings 'STR_LIST'. You are supposed to return the strings as groups of anagrams such that strings belonging to a particular group are anagrams of one another.

Note :
An Anagram is a word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of a different word or phrase. We can generalize this in string processing by saying that an anagram of a string is another string with the same quantity of each character in it, in any order.
Example:
{ “abc”, “ged”, “dge”, “bac” } 
In the above example the array should be divided into 2 groups. The first group consists of { “abc”, “bac” } and the second group consists of { “ged”, “dge” }.
Problem approach

Simple Hashing problem

Try solving now

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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