How Adobe Interviews in 2026: Process, Questions & What They Score

1. 01

   Two Sum and its common variants

   Tests hash-map lookup for pair sums; the O(n) one-pass insight beats the brute-force nested loop.

2. 02

   Move all zeroes in an array to the end while preserving the relative order of non-zero elements

   Tests in-place array partitioning with a two-pointer write index while preserving relative order.

3. 03

   Detect a cycle in a linked list and find the start of the loop

   Tests Floyd's tortoise-and-hare; the second phase for finding the cycle start is the differentiator.

4. 04

   Find the median of a stream of integers (two-heap / priority-queue approach)

   Tests the two-heap technique: balance a max-heap and min-heap for O(log n) inserts and O(1) median reads.

5. 05

   Validate whether a binary tree is a valid Binary Search Tree

   Tests recursion with min/max bounds propagation; the common trap is checking only immediate children.

6. 06

   Check for valid/balanced parentheses using a stack

   Tests stack-based matching of open and close brackets with edge cases like empty input or a leftover stack.

7. 07

   Find the Lowest Common Ancestor (LCA) of two nodes in a binary tree

   Tests recursive tree traversal; the insight is returning the split point where the two targets diverge.

8. 08

   Print all palindromic substrings of a given string

   Tests expand-around-center enumeration over 2n-1 centers, or dynamic programming as an alternative.

Reported problems, listed so you know what to expect. Practice them in your own editor or on the platform you prefer; SupaCV's practice mode coaches how you talk through them.

1. 01

   Design an LRU cache (and follow-ups extending it to a thread-safe cache supporting both LRU and LFU eviction)

   Tests hash map plus doubly linked list for O(1) operations, with follow-ups on locking and LFU eviction.

2. 02

   Design a URL-shortening service (e.g., bit.ly-style)

   System design staple: ID generation, collision avoidance, redirect latency, and read-heavy scaling.

3. 03

   Design a rate limiter that works correctly in a distributed system

   System design: token bucket or sliding window, plus keeping counters consistent across distributed nodes.

4. 04

   Design an elevator/lift management system that minimizes wait time across multiple lifts

   Low-level design: scheduling strategy to minimize wait time, state modeling per lift, and request dispatching.

5. 05

   Design a read-write lock that allows multiple simultaneous readers but only one writer

   Concurrency design: reader counting, writer exclusion, and avoiding writer starvation.

6. 06

   Solve the producer-consumer problem using semaphores/mutexes, and explain mutex vs. semaphore

   Concurrency classic: bounded-buffer coordination with semaphores, plus a crisp mutex versus semaphore distinction.

7. 07

   Design a generic (templated) object-oriented stack or similar data structure in C++/Java

   Tests generics/templates and OO encapsulation while implementing a clean container API in C++ or Java.

Reported problems, listed so you know what to expect. Practice them in your own editor or on the platform you prefer; SupaCV's practice mode coaches how you talk through them.

1. 01

   Explain the necessary conditions for deadlock and how to prevent it

   OS fundamentals: the four Coffman conditions and prevention via lock ordering or resource preemption.

2. 02

   Explain virtual memory and paging

   OS fundamentals: address translation, page tables, page faults, and why paging enables process isolation.

3. 03

   Difference between a process and a thread

   OS fundamentals: separate address spaces versus shared memory, and the context-switch cost difference.

4. 04

   Database normalization, indexing, and ACID properties

   Database fundamentals: normal forms, when indexes help or hurt writes, and what each ACID property guarantees.

5. 05

   TCP vs. UDP, and a basic walkthrough of the OSI/TCP-IP layers

   Networking fundamentals: reliability and ordering tradeoffs, plus mapping protocols onto the layer model.

6. 06

   OOP fundamentals: polymorphism, encapsulation, abstract class vs. interface (commonly framed around Java or C++, both cited across multiple prep sources as languages Adobe frequently tests in; no single language is clearly documented as 'most common' across all Adobe engineering teams)

   OOP knowledge check: polymorphism, encapsulation, and abstract class versus interface, usually in Java or C++.

Reported problems, listed so you know what to expect. Practice them in your own editor or on the platform you prefer; SupaCV's practice mode coaches how you talk through them.

1. 01

   What is your favorite Adobe product, and what feature would you add? Walk me through your process

2. 02

   How would you prioritize a roadmap when engineering capacity is limited

3. 03

   Given a large dataset of user engagement/usage data, how would you determine whether a recent feature launch succeeded?

4. 04

   How would you size the market for a new AI-driven feature (e.g., in the Firefly/Creative Cloud family)?

1. 01

   Tell me about a time you went above and beyond for a customer

2. 02

   Describe a time you had to deliver a project under a tight deadline: how did you manage it

3. 03

   Tell me about a disagreement with a teammate and how you resolved it

4. 04

   Tell me about a time you identified a problem no one else had noticed and took ownership of the solution

5. 05

   Describe a time you took initiative to improve a process or solve a problem without being asked

6. 06

   (Senior/leadership candidates) How would you deliver a project with 3 people in 3 months when the original estimate was 9 people over 9 months? (This is an actual reported Adobe interview question.)

7. 07

   What do you think are Adobe's biggest bets or biggest threats this year, and how would you contribute?

1. 01

   Tell me about a time you had to make a difficult trade-off in a product decision

2. 02

   What is the biggest threat to Adobe this year?