Adobe CS1 Interview Experience – Honest Feedback Needed
Summary
I attended three interview rounds for a Computer Scientist 1 role at Adobe, solving most standard problems but struggled with abstraction and large‑scale optimization; I am uncertain whether I am borderline or rejected.
Full Experience
Hi Everyone,
Had 3 rounds today for a Computer Scientist 1 role at Adobe . Would appreciate honest feedback on how this performance is typically judged.
Round 1:
- Word Ladder (StartWord → EndWord) — discussed BFS approach
- Linked List: add/remove node operations
- One puzzle (solved partially)
Round 2:
-
Insert Delete GetRandom O(1) — implemented using HashMap + ArrayList
-
Peeking Iterator
- I implemented it using an ArrayList
- But the expectation was to extend/use an existing Iterator (missed this abstraction)
Round 3:
-
Intersection of two linked lists — solved
-
Follow-up: Given millions of linked lists (each with millions of nodes), some lists merge into a common tail. Group lists that merge together like:
{ {l1, l2}, {l3}, {l4, l5, l6} }- I understood it as grouping intersecting lists
- But couldn’t derive a scalable/optimal approach
Overall: solved most standard problems, but struggled with abstraction (iterator) and large-scale optimization in the last question.
How would this generally be evaluated — borderline or reject?
Interview Questions (5)
Word Ladder
Given a start word and an end word, find the length of the shortest transformation sequence such that only one letter can be changed at a time and each intermediate word must exist in the given word list.
Insert Delete GetRandom O(1)
Design a data structure that supports insert(val), delete(val), and getRandom() in average O(1) time. insert adds a value if not present, delete removes a value if present, and getRandom returns a random element from the current set.
Peeking Iterator
Design an iterator that supports the usual next() and hasNext() methods as well as an additional peek() method that returns the next element without advancing the iterator.
Intersection of Two Linked Lists
Given the heads of two singly linked lists, determine the node at which the two lists intersect. Return null if there is no intersection.
Group Merged Linked Lists
Given millions of linked lists, each potentially containing millions of nodes, where some lists merge into a common tail, group the lists that share the same tail. For example, produce groups like { {l1, l2}, {l3}, {l4, l5, l6} } where each group contains lists that intersect.