Cisco Interview Experiences

9 results

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  HR Screen, Then a River-Crossing Brainteaser Instead of CodingCisco · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Sep 2026

  I applied for an SDE role on the Switch team. The first round was over Wedex, 30 minutes, with a female HR person. She asked things like where I live and where I'm eligible to work — that kind of question, nothing about my past experience. At the end I asked her how to prepare for the next round. She said this one would be switch-related, so I should probably brush up on some switching fundamenta…

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  QA Questions from an Acquired TeamCisco · Software Engineer · Onsite · Sep 2026

  This was a team from a company Cisco acquired. The questions were mostly about my experience and open questions, and these interviews really come down to luck, so these are just the ones I remember. Everyone was pretty nice and happy to share their own experiences. If you can successfully ping a server, does that mean port 443 is accessible? How do you test a new feature? How do you drive improve…

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  Cisco Software Engineer interview: a broad and difficult online assessmentCisco · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Jul 2026

  Rejected

  The OA was difficult from the beginning and covered far more than I'd expected. It mixed multiple-choice questions, coding and several subjective scenario sections. One section used short passages followed by questions I had to answer in words. Switching from coding to those judgment-based tasks was immediately challenging. The coding was hard too, requiring both speed and correctness. My backgro…

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  Cisco Software Engineer interview: assessment followed by weeks of silenceCisco · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Jul 2026

  My process began with a Hackerrank-style exam. It included several easy-to-medium LeetCode-style problems and a simple SQL question, so it felt manageable compared with harder online assessments I had heard about. After I finished, I heard nothing for weeks. The silence eventually ended without further progress, so the outcome felt less like the result of an interview conversation and more like a…

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  Cisco Software Engineer interview: fair questions and disputed cheating concernCisco · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Jul 2026

  Rejected

  I entered the interviews confident because the questions matched my strengths: backend concepts, Java, system design, and coding. The interaction felt positive, and I believed I answered clearly. After the rejection, I spoke with HR to understand what happened. I learned that the interviewer thought I was looking at answers during the interview. That surprised me because I was not using anything…

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  Cisco Software Engineer interview: networking OA cutoffCisco · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Jul 2026

  The process began with an online assessment, and the later interview path depended on that result. For me, the OA was the gate. I solved some questions, but my overall performance was not strong enough to continue. There was no detailed technical follow-up afterward, only the sense that the feedback did not support moving forward. The assessment covered networking and C fundamentals: subnetting,…

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  Cisco Software Engineer interview: OA programming barrier and design discussionCisco · Software Engineer · Online Assessment · Jul 2026

  Rejected

  My process started with an online assessment and moved quickly into interview rounds, though I did not make it all the way through. The assessment combined many multiple-choice questions with programming tasks, and I could tell early that the programming section would decide things. When I was unsuccessful, the gap was clearly more about solving than simply understanding concepts. The interviews…

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  Rejected for Background Mismatch After a Resume-Heavy Technical ScreenCisco · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Jul 2026

  Rejected

  My first round was a technical phone screen with a TL. They said it was technical, but since my experience and the role (low level/embedding) weren't a great match, they spent a lot of time deep-diving into my resume. On top of that, my big-tech infra project architecture was fairly simple, and I had to explain some of the tools I'd used, so before I knew it, 50 minutes were gone. The coding ques…

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  Cisco Software Engineer interview experienceCisco · Software Engineer · Technical Screen · Jun 2026

  The technical questions leaned toward systems thinking and networking fundamentals. I was asked about stack and heap basics, what causes segmentation faults, and how I would approach debugging a stack overflow. Networking came up too, including wireless concepts and the differences between OFDMA and OFDM. The conversation stayed informal. Even when the topics got detailed, I was encouraged to exp…