Cisco interview experience Real time questions & tips from candidates to crack your interview

Software Engineer

Cisco
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4 rounds | 11 Coding problems

Interview preparation journey

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Preparation
Duration: 6 months
Topics: OOPS, DBMS, OS, CN, Data Structures, and Algorithms.
Tip
Tip

Tip 1: Do focus on your core subjects like OS, DBMS, CN, DSA, etc.
Tip 2: Do some good projects on the latest trending technologies like Cloud, Blockchain, AI, DevOps, etc
Tip 3: Practice coding
Tip 4: Enhance your presentation skills.

Application process
Where: Other
Eligibility: Above 7 CGPA
Resume Tip
Resume tip

Tip 1: Try to add a GitHub link or live app link for the projects you're mentioning in the resume.
Tip 2: Add all the certification and training you've done along with the link to the certification either on google drive or a website.

Interview rounds

01
Round
Easy
Online Coding Interview
Duration60 mins
Interview date23 Jul 2021
Coding problem1

The test was in the evening around 7 pm via Hackerrank.

1. The Celebrity Problem

Moderate
30m average time
60% success
0/80
Asked in companies
OlaVisaApple

There are ‘N’ people at a party. Each person has been assigned a unique id between 0 to 'N' - 1(both inclusive). A celebrity is a person who is known to everyone but does not know anyone at the party.

Given a helper function ‘knows(A, B)’, It will returns "true" if the person having id ‘A’ know the person having id ‘B’ in the party, "false" otherwise. Your task is to find out the celebrity at the party. Print the id of the celebrity, if there is no celebrity at the party then print -1.

Note:
1. The helper function ‘knows’ is already implemented for you.
2. ‘knows(A, B)’ returns "false", if A doesn't know B.
3. You should not implement helper function ‘knows’, or speculate about its implementation.
4. You should minimize the number of calls to function ‘knows(A, B)’.
5. There are at least 2 people at the party.
6. At most one celebrity will exist.
Problem approach

The solution approach was pretty straightforward, as it was a well-known problem.
I just created a graph using a matrix and solved the problem.

Try solving now
02
Round
Medium
Video Call
Duration60 mins
Interview date10 Aug 2021
Coding problem5

The interview was in the morning around 8 am.

1. OS Question

What do you mean by Kernel? How OS operates, what all scheduling algorithms are used in windows OS

Problem approach

Tip 1: Focus on OS, especially Linux
Tip 2: Study all CPU scheduling Algorithms

2. Networking question

Explain all the layers of the TCP/IP model.

Problem approach

Tip 1: Study CN thoroughly

3. Networking question

How do you think 5g will help or improve user experiences, and how it will benefit the industry overall?

Problem approach

Tip 1: Study Mobile Computing and CN.

4. Networking question

Have you ever faced any internet issues or network problems? How did you solve those issues what was your approach.

Problem approach

Tip 1: Basic knowledge of network troubleshooting will help.

5. Detect Cycle In A Directed Graph

Moderate
30m average time
75% success
0/80
Asked in companies
MicrosoftAdobeCisco

You are given a directed graph having ‘N’ nodes. A matrix ‘EDGES’ of size M x 2 is given which represents the ‘M’ edges such that there is an edge directed from node EDGES[i][0] to node EDGES[i][1].

Find whether the graph contains a cycle or not, return true if a cycle is present in the given directed graph else return false.

For Example :
In the following directed graph has a cycle i.e. B->C->E->D->B.

alt text

Note :
1. The cycle must contain at least two nodes.
2. It is guaranteed that the given graph has no self-loops in the graph.
3. The graph may or may not be connected.
4. Nodes are numbered from 1 to N.
5. Your solution will run on multiple test cases. If you are using global variables make sure to clear them.
Problem approach

I used the cycle detection method in graphs to solve this problem.

Try solving now
03
Round
Medium
Video Call
Duration45 mins
Interview date11 Aug 2021
Coding problem4

The interview was in the morning around 8 am

1. Technical questions

How we can create a data structure to store values whose size is not fixed and can grow as and when needed? and how we can implement sorting on that data structure

Problem approach

Tip 1: Study DSA
Tip 2: Practice sorting Algorithms both for arrays and linked lists.

2. Technical questions

Write binary search algorithm for arrays. can we implement Binary search on a Linked list and what will be the time complexity of the binary search in arrays and linked lists? which one will be more suitable?

Problem approach

Firsts I implemented a binary search for arrays and discussed the space and time complexity.
Then I discussed the idea of implementing binary search on a linked list pointing out the time complexity which will be more as compared to an array.

3. OS Question

what is the main difference between a mobile OS and a windows OS?

Problem approach

Tip 1: Study OS

4. Networking question

At which layer of the TCP/IP model do routers work? what do you know about routing protocols?

Problem approach

Tip 1: Study routing protocols
Tip 2: Study different networking devices and in which layers they operate

04
Round
Easy
HR Round
Duration15 mins
Interview date11 Aug 2021
Coding problem1

The interview was in the evening around 5 pm.

1. Basic HR Questions

What do you know about Cisco? Have you used any of our products before?

Who are the competitors of Cisco?

Where do you want to work Bangalore/Chennai/Pune?

Problem approach

Tip 1: Do a background search for the company to which you're applying

Here's your problem of the day

Solving this problem will increase your chance to get selected in this company

Skill covered: Programming

To make an AI less repetitive in a long paragraph, you should increase:

Choose another skill to practice
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