CS-1 at Adobe

How it went

What they would tell you

How to prepare

Round by round

1. 1

   DSA Online Test60 min

   DSA 1: Given a linked list and a number K, reverse the list in groups of K. If the remaining nodes are less than K, leave them as-is. I coded it live, tested with custom inputs, and explained my approach. DSA 2: Given a binary tree, find the number of nodes at each level (like a BFS level-order traversal, but return the counts). Solved in 15 mins, all test cases passed.

   • Reverse K Groups
   • Level Node Count
2. 2

   System Design60 min

   Design a book review platform like Goodreads. Focus:

   • Entities and relationships (User, Book, Review, Rating, Bookshelf).
   • DB schema- how do you model user-book-review, queries for top-rated books, reviews by friends, etc.
   • Scalability- what if you have millions of books and users?
3. 3

   Hiring Manager60 min

   • Previous projects and major challenges
   • Trade-offs in system design choices
   • Team leadership and project management experiences
   • Behavioural questions: handling conflicts, tight deadlines, and mentorship
4. 4

   Director Round60 min

   Questions: “When you review a PR, what do you look for?”

   • I talked about code clarity, test coverage, edge cases, and style, not just “does it work.” “How do you review a design doc? What red flags do you watch for?”

   • I said clarity of requirements, scalability, failure modes, and observability. Follow-ups: “What if the team disagrees with your review?” Behavioural: Short discussion on expectations and team collaboration

What came up