Microsoft and Adobe Interview Experience

I am sharing my interview experience in this post so that it can be helpful for those who are preparing for the upcoming interviews. Entire hiring process was virtual and, consisted of 4 rounds for both Microsoft and Adobe.

Microsoft Experience:

Round 1(Technical Interview): 60 minutes

1.https://leetcode.com/problems/product-of-array-except-self/

I gave O(n2) solution but the interviewer asked to improve the time complexity, then I was able to improve it to O(n).

2. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/twisted-tower-of-hanoi-problem/?ref=rp

I gave a solution but it is failing for few cases, interviewer gave me few hints on missing cases and I was able to correct my solution to work for all the cases.

Round 2 (Technical Interview): 60 minutes

Design Snakes and Ladder Game(LLD)

My Approach:

1. Requirements gathering
2. Identified Different classes.
3. Attributes and functions
4. Class relations.

Entire round involves discussion with the interviewer at each step. Interviewer asked me to implement few APIs and he gave few scenarios to handle related to multithreading.

Round 3(Technical Interview): 90 minutes

A room consists of objects. Check if there is space available to place a new object in the room.

Question is just one statement but I have asked more questions to get more details. Expectation from the interviewer is to come up with the design and write production ready code. Initially, i was asked to assume the object will be either rectangle or square, I came up with DFS approach later question has been modified to object of any shape.

Round 4(Managerial+ Technical): 90 minutes

First, 30 minutes interviewer asked me about my projects and managerial questions.

Next 1hr (HLD+LLD question) — Design an online Gaming system.

My approach:

1. Requirements gathering

2. User estimation, read/write ratio’s, storage estimation

3. Latency, Consistency, Availability, Partition tolerance

4. HLD design diagram

5. Identifying different classes, functions, and class relations

6. Explained about basic workflows in the design

7. Interviewer asked me few workflows to add, So modified few things in the design accordingly.

Result:

After 1 week Microsoft has offered me the role of SDE-2(Level 62).

Adobe Experience:

Round 1(Technical Interview): 60 minutes

Draw the outlines of the given image.

I have taken 15 min to understand the question as it was not very clear to me. Interview helped me to understand the question as it requires few imaging related knowledge. So he asked me to make assumptions related imaging related APIs and RGB values.

Finally i was able to solve this question using DFS approach.

Round 2 (Technical Interview): 70 minutes

1. binary tree problem
2. arrays and binary search problem
3. OS concepts
4. C++ Concepts

For problem solving questions, interviewer will not proceed for the next question until I gave best solution in terms of time and space

Round 3(Technical Interview): 60 minutes

1. LLD question (MultiThreading related)
2. Recursion problem

Round 4(Director Round): 90 minutes

1. About all the projects that I have worked till date.
2. OS concepts
3. Caching related design question
4. Managerial questions in last 30 minutes

Result: After 3 days got an offer from Adobe for the SDE-3 role.

Preparation Links:

1. Scaler Academy — https://www.scaler.com/
2. Leet Code — https://leetcode.com/
3. GeeksforGeeks — https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/
4. Narendra L youtube videos for HLD — https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn1XnDWhsLS5URXTi5wtFTA

Tips for your behavior during the interview:

1. Don’t try to jump into a solution until you are very clear with the problem. Try to identify different use-cases and clarify the expected output for the problem to confirm your understanding is correct.
2. Ask thought-provoking questions not just at the end but throughout.
3. Speed doesn't mean smartness, Take your time to give the best possible answer.
4. Don’t try to impress the interviewer, but be Honest and have a friendly conversation.

Hope my article helps for your preparation. Wish you all good luck!