CQ_Product_Series | Agniva Bhattacharya | Adobe (Product)

Good evening, I am doing fine, how are you?

Yeah, yeah, we can begin.

See, I was only selected in one software company. I had to interview for only one software company. But I can give you a procedure, I can give you basic information about how it works for the other companies also. So basically, in most companies you have a coding round in which there will be MCQs as well as some coding questions. Mostly there were coding questions only, two to three coding questions and some there were MCQs related to sometimes your development, sometimes maybe there's a data structure, sometimes operating systems and stuff. Depends on the company. So, after the coding round, you were shortlisted on the basis of the performance and after that you had to appear for an interview. So the shortlist came maybe a day before the interview. So yeah, in the interview you had maybe two to three rounds, in most companies around two rounds, one technical round, one HR round. But in my case, in Adobe, there was only one technical round in case of Adobe product. But for the product role, in other cases like the MDSR role and the research role, maybe there were two rounds most probably. One was technical and one was HR. And in some cases, in some companies you have two HR rounds even. So that is the general flow basically.

So, I can speak mainly mostly in terms of software companies. So, if they have coded before a bit, then they can maybe start competitive programming and continue that for around two to three months to get good at it. Because once you are good at competitive programming and you've got hang of it, you kind of are really good at implementing stuff, which is really important. So, you know, doing competitive programming improves your implementation skills, which is really important. Otherwise, you can start doing Leetcode from now, but that will be an overkill because you need only maybe two or three months to get through the entire lead code question set. So, I'll say if you want to start doing it from now, then start doing CP a bit and then slowly once you have gotten hang of it, you move to Leetcode after that. So that might be the best thing. You can also take courses like AlgoZenith because I was also enrolled in such a course and it was really helpful for me. So, I can also suggest that.

Okay, once I was shortlisted, so basically, I'll tell the story in short. My shortlist was just around five or six hours before the interview. So, I did not have much of a time, but I can tell you one thing that mostly you'll know whether you'll have a HR round or not. So, if you have a HR round, the first thing is to see the HR questions, a few basic HR questions that you have on. If you have that on Leetcode, maybe I saw on Leetcode because I was not sure whether HR round would be there or not. But that is, I think the first step because HR round is very important. Once even if you get through the technical round, a lot of people fall up, you know, do not get through because of the HR round because they are not able to answer the questions in the proper way. HR questions are really important. And another thing is that you can see the most asked questions of the company, the questions that have been asked mostly. You get that in Geeks for Geeks and all like some specific companies have some specific set of questions that they keep asking. So, there is a high chance of that being repeated. So, you can do that. You can go through those questions. Also, if you have anything that is left that you have not covered properly, then it is not at all the time to cover that. If you have very little time left, maybe a few hours, if you have some weak point, it is not the time to panic and start doing that because you will not be able to understand that in the last moment. So those are the few tips to keep in mind after the shortlist comes through.

Yeah, so mostly I covered that in the previous questions. I covered mostly that. But anything else like this, you start like if you have a few months, maybe five to six months left, they can start understanding things like, they can start focusing on the placement and stuff. Because waiting for the last three months, especially if one doesn't have a software background before, if one has not prepared for SDE role before, if they have not done a lot of data structure algorithms and stuff, then they should start preparing when there is five to six months left. That is a good time to start preparing, you know, you know, so start doing CP and all, you know, start building a project. That is another important thing. If you don't have a project, a project is really important. One project, one to two projects maybe is helpful. So yeah, start if you have some specific companies targeted, then see what the companies aim for and start building a project according to that. So, you know, projects are really important. So yeah, that's it. Mostly.

Thank you, It was a pleasure being interviewed.