I applied through college or university. The process took 9 months. I interviewed at Cisco (San Diego, CA) in Nov 2016
Interview
Applied through campus (UCSD), they got back to me relatively quickly at first but then took forever to reject me (about 9 months), I thought this was very unprofessional. The recruiters were very nice.
It's a one hour long panel interview with two to four engineers. The interview contained behavioural questions, resume walk through, python and c implementation, c trivia questions, os concepts, debugging.
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Cisco in Feb 2026
Interview
Applied 1/14, prescreening with recruiter 1/29, interview with hiring manager 2/9, offer 2/13
Very easy interview and manager was super nice! Mostly was just asked about the projects on my resume with a couple problem-solving questions surrounding my projects.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How would you prove your product's safety to the user? (Essentially asking my testing process)
I applied online. I interviewed at Cisco (San Jose, CA)
Interview
The interview has two rounds:
Round 1 focuses on solving DSA problems within 45 minutes, testing logic, efficiency, and coding skills.
Round 2 involves resume screening and project discussion, where you explain your contributions, technical decisions, challenges faced, and overall understanding of your work.