My Adobe Off-Campus Interview Experience (June 2022)

🚀 Disclaimer: This experience is from June 2022. The interview process may have changed since then, but I hope this still helps future aspirants get an idea of what to expect.

I appeared for the Adobe off-campus interview in June 2022. It was an exciting and insightful experience spread over three rounds — each round testing various technical and problem-solving skills.

Here’s a breakdown of each round:

✨ Round 1: Technical + Problem Solving

This was primarily focused on core CS fundamentals and coding skills.

CS Fundamentals:

Indexing in DBMS

• I explained the concept, but faced a few difficulties during discussion.

Isolation & Isolation Levels

• I was familiar with 1–2 levels like Read Committed, but not all.

How a text file is opened by OS

• I explained this using the concepts of processes and threads.

PCB (Process Control Block)

• I was able to explain this clearly.

Merge Sort vs Quick Sort

• I compared based on time and space complexity.
• When asked about stable vs unstable, I mistakenly flipped the answer. The interviewer smiled at that 🥲😂

SOLID Principles

• I confused them with OOP basics like Abstraction and Encapsulation. The interviewer clarified that SOLID refers to specific design principles 🥲
• After that I explained that.

Coding Questions:

Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters

• Explained the approach using sliding window. No need to implement.

Convert Binary Tree to Greater Tree

• Each node should hold the sum of values greater than itself.
• Implemented successfully.

Target Sum — Number of Ways

• Solved and implemented this dynamic programming problem.

🧠 Round 2: In-depth Technical Discussion

This round was more conceptual and analytical.

1. Indexing (again)
2. SOLID Principles in detailed
3. Paging & Virtual Memory
4. Process vs Thread with examples
5. Deadlock, Scheduling Algorithms
6. OSI Layers

• Also asked about HTTP vs HTTPS and how HTTPS ensures security.
• I couldn’t explain encryption and SSL in depth.

7. Thrashing in OS

Coding Questions:

1. Matrix Row-Column to Zero

• If a[i][j] == 0, set entire i-th row and j-th column to 0.
• I wrote the code from scratch but it gave incorrect output due to a minor issue.
• Interviewer gave me a choice to debug or move on. I debugged it quickly and moved on to another problem.

2. Binary Gap

• Leetcode: Binary Gap
• I gave a solution with good complexity. The interviewer told me to try using different approach using bitwise operators — I tried but couldn’t complete it.

💬 Round 3: Projects + Advanced Concepts

This round involved discussing my internship experience, projects, and advanced CS concepts.

Topics Discussed:

1. Internship Overview & Project Discussion
2. Authentication & Authorization (Project-specific)
3. Virtual Functions in C++
4. Function Overloading vs Overriding
5. Socket Programming

• I gave a brief explanation and mentioned I wasn’t fully confident with it.

6. OSI Layers Again (With protocols like IPv4, HTTP)

Coding Questions:

1. Inorder Traversal in Binary Trees
2. Inorder Predecessor in a Tree

• Given node has left, right, and parent pointers.

3. Non-Decreasing Triplets in Array

Similar to below problem:

📌 Leetcode 334 — https://leetcode.com/problems/increasing-triplet-subsequence

• Check whether such triplets exist — I explained the idea.

4. Count Non-Decreasing Triplets

• Explained the concept, didn’t implement.

🎯 They expected the most optimized solution in all coding rounds.

Final Thoughts

The interviewers were friendly and supportive, even when I made mistakes. What I learned:

• Brush up DBMS and OS core concepts — they come up often.
• Know the difference between OOP Basics and Design Principles (like SOLID).
• Coding questions don’t always need implementation, but understanding edge cases and optimal complexity is a must.
• Be honest when you’re unsure — it’s okay to not know everything.

If you’re preparing for Adobe or any product-based company, focus on:

• DSA (especially arrays, trees, and dynamic programming)
• CS fundamentals (DBMS, OS, Networks)
• Projects (have at least one you can explain deeply)
• System Design basics (for experienced roles)