Adobe · Primly Community

Adobe coding interview and online assessment: format, difficulty, what to actually prep

frontend_fran · 4 replies

just finished the Adobe coding loop for a frontend/full-stack role targeting their Creative Cloud org. going to break down the coding portion since the format isn't super well documented.

the OA (online assessment) before the actual interviews there's a HackerRank OA. 2 questions, 90 minutes. mine were: a string manipulation problem (medium, something like find all anagram windows in a string) a graph traversal (medium-hard, connected components with some twist)

not LC hard. if you're comfortable with sliding window and basic BFS/DFS you'll be fine. the timer is generous.

the actual coding rounds there are 2 coding rounds in the onsite loop. each is 45 minutes, one question per round with follow-ups. format is CoderPad, you can pick any language.

my questions: round 1: implement LRU cache. yeah, the classic. but then they asked me to extend it to handle TTL expiry. that's where it gets interesting. round 2: serialize/deserialize a binary tree (also classic), then asked about handling very large trees where you can't fit the whole thing in memory.

the "extension" question is where they evaluate seniors vs mid-level. getting the base problem is table stakes. the interesting conversation happens after.

difficulty vs other companies honestly: easier than Google, harder than Salesforce. they're not trying to embarrass you. the questions are well-known problem types but the extensions are where they see if you actually think in systems.

prep LC medium grind is enough. I'd specifically do the string/array/tree classics plus at least one cache implementation problem. don't neglect complexity analysis, they asked for time+space at the end of both rounds.

one thing I'll flag: the interviewers were kind. no poker face, no silence games. if you're going in a wrong direction they nudge you. that's refreshing compared to some other loops I've been through.

4 replies

newgrad_neil

is the OA proctored? I've seen some companies use AI monitors and I genuinely just freeze up under surveillance even when I know the material

frontend_fran

HackerRank's standard setup. camera on, not intensely monitored in my experience. no weird eye tracking. just have your environment clean and you're fine.

mobile_mara

LRU cache with TTL is such a good extension question. I got something similar for a different company. the trap is using a separate thread for expiry cleanup when lazy eviction on access is usually simpler and good enough. did they push on that tradeoff?

bootcamp_bri

this is so helpful, thank you. going in for a junior role next week and the bar sounds approachable. any tips for someone who's been grinding LC but still gets nervous on arrays?