Cisco Systems Software Engineer Interview Questions & Reviews
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Updated Apr 29, 2012 – Interview questions and reviews posted anonymously by interview candidates.
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Difficulty Rating [?] Based on 57 ratings 
“Average” Interview
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Interview Experience [?] Based on 57 ratings
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| 41–50 of 57 Cisco Systems Interviews | Sort by |
Software Engineer at Cisco Systems
Posted Jul 10, 2010
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Mar 2008 in Boxborough, MA (took 2 weeks)
On-site visit and interview with hiring manager, as well as, staff in the group. Explanation of product/technology developing. Group discussion answering questions about my previous work experiences and skill-sets.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Group/Panel Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Cisco Systems
Posted Jul 10, 2010
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Received and Declined Offer
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Interviewed Feb 2008 (took 2 days)
Phone call from Human resources to chat. Phone call from Human resources to set up interview time.Phone call from Human resources to confirm. conference call with interviewer.Phone call from Human resources to set up on site interview. 7-8 interviews on site. Exhausting and boring questions. Interview ended later than was set to and had little time to catch the plane.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview, an IQ/Intelligence Test, a Skills Test and a Personality Test.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Cisco Systems
Posted Jul 9, 2010
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed May 2010 in San Jose, CA (took 2 weeks)
Applied online and got a call from the HR to setup a pre-pre-screen! This was a 15-min. interview in which the HR went thru the motions talking abt my resume and experience. Few days later had a C-test. Not the easiest. If you are not a regular in C then you will take some time even though your C knowledge is complete. This was followed by two 45-min interviews with team member and engg. manager. I was very well prepared and the first interview went very well. He was thoroughly impressed. Then came the engg. manager. He seemed 'unprepared' about what to ask and started random questions on my experience. This also went well, later I thought some of my answers were incomplete but thought had done enough to get an onsite. Got a reject mail in a few days.
Overall I thought the employees were very polite. It doesn't seem that Cisco needs brilliant people. People with good programming skills who know simple things like code optimization,data structures, few relevant projects go thru to the final stage. But,what I learned was that one position has about 10 people contesting and say 5 are upto the mark. After this I think the hiring decision becomes a subjective one . The engg. manager clearly seemed to have a bias towards CS guys. I was EE and his mood changed after hearing this.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a Skills Test.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Cisco Systems
Posted Jul 7, 2010
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Jun 2010 (took 2 weeks)
I submitted the resume online on their web site. Also it was referred by an alumni from our university.
In a 1 and a half hour interview.
ask some c questions: like what is the functionality for a static variable and a static function in c. and write some c programs like binary searche.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Cisco Systems
Posted Jul 6, 2010 — 0 of 1 people found this helpful
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Apr 2010 in College Station, TX (took 3 weeks)
Had a background check and then went on for a 3 hr online interview with they watching me on a webcam. I thought I dint prepare well enough for interview it was basically about C programming skills, algorithms and datastructures.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a College or University and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a Background Check.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Cisco Systems
Posted Jun 22, 2010
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Received and Accepted Offer
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Interviewed May 2010 in San Jose, CA (took 2 months)
Got a phone interview in May, and was interviewed by the hiring manager on topics ranging from networking to Operating systems. He called me the next day to set up an onsite at . The onsite was an exhausting experience.4 hrs with 5 interviewers. Had to wait for a month before any sort of reply from them after that.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview, a Drug Test and a Background Check.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Cisco Systems
Posted May 28, 2010
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2.0
Easy Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Received and Declined Offer
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Interviewed May 2010 in Richfield, OH (took 2 days)
- 1 was asked a number of technical questions by the hiring manager and his staff.
- I was asked a number of organizational questions by the staff.
- I was invited back and I was asked general questions by the executives within the organization.
- I was asked about the my education and specific classed that I attended.
Interview Questions
Reason for Declining
I asked for more money.
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a Group/Panel Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Cisco Systems
Posted May 28, 2010
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Apr 2010 in Austin, TX (took 2 days)
Had two one hour phone interviews, one with the hiring manager, one with a technical lead. Both went well and a two day in-person interview was being scheduled. However, the day before the interview the hiring manager got in touch with me to let me know that the job req. was no longer available, but more would be opening in the next quarter. Waited until the next quarter and got my in-person interview. There was a programming test with three developers asking me questions. I ran long on the first one, the second question was based on code one of the interviewers put on the board (which had an unintentional bug), and the third one I dealt with well. Next came a one-on-one interview with another developer, but no technical questions were asked. The hiring manager was also too busy to actually interview me. At the end of the first day the hiring manager informed me he would be contacting me later that day to let me know the results. He did not get back to me until the next day to say they would not be extending me an offer.
Interview Questions
unsigned int
doit(int x)
{
unsigned int z = 0;
while (x &= (x-1)) z++;
return z;
}
Other Details
I got the interview through an Employee Referral and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview and a Group/Panel Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Cisco Systems
Posted May 19, 2010 — 1 of 1 people found this helpful
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed May 2010 (took 2+ weeks)
The hiring manager called me up on phone and asked reasonable technical questions. Priority Invertion, Deadlock, Mutexes. Keep in mind that this was probably for a position which required very good OS concepts. I gave satisfactory answers and he arranged for a 1:1 the next week. The onsite interview had about 5 people. First one was hiring manager himnself. Gave a C test. Simple sorted array merging. I had rusty hands. Followed by another enginner who grilled me on OS concepts. How is executable format stored and loaded. Where are variables stored. How are interrupts handled etc. Majorly OS related stuff. Also recursion C questions. This was followed by another round of hard core questions on OS, threads and non amskable interrupts followed by a simple question on linked list. Need to know basics about datas tructures and algorithms. Which one is more efficient etc. After this a member from different team came by, asked some questions on my earlier work and another tree recursion program. This followed by the hiring manager of another team, asked basic question on my previous work and other problem solving scenarios when two processes are communicating with each other(IPCs). I was asked to come by for a second round after a week. The first 1:1 was difficult for me. Some questions on semaphores, mutexes. C programming question specifically targeting your knowledge of bitwise operators and memory management. Did not do so well. This followed by simple rounds by 2 other persons. Previous work. Multiple processor programming etc.. Overall, I probably needed more experience in the area that they wanted. Did not get the offer.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at Cisco Systems
Posted May 4, 2010
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Received and Declined Offer
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Interviewed Apr 2010 in Raleigh, NC (took 2+ weeks)
Had a phone interview where I was asked basic networking questions and some C questions. It was all very simple. Later had onsite. Had 5 rounds. 4 rounds of technical interview which tested my C skills, OS concepts, networking and my past work experience. And later a HR kinda interview with hiring manager.
Interview Questions
Reason for Declining
Didnt like the position offered
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview, a Group/Panel Interview and a Skills Test.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
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