I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Cisco (Bengaluru) in Jun 2025
Interview
Interview was a decent experience. It took 10 days for interviews to complete. 1st round was virtual interview, then they called over to their office for 3 more rounds of interview. After couple of days, had a virtual round with Director.
Interview questions [5]
Question 1
Round 1:
1. Reverse array in-place.
2. Construct target string using characters from origin string.
3. Construct linux file path from an array of strings.
4. Explain memory space of process in linux.
5. Debug experience with gdb
6. IPC questions and design a server-client scenario.
Round-2:
1. Synchronization questions.
2. Given two dictionaries. Print pairs not common in the dictionaries.
3. Implement a program that tracks events from apps on a system (watchdog).
4. Spinlock purpose and usage.
5. Debug questions.
Round-4:
1. Tell me biggest challenge you faced.
2. Array with sorted integers, has been rotated m number of times. Construct the original array sequence.
3. Synchronization questions, and lockless.
4. Memory management, DMA.
5. Explain how fwrite() works from userspace till device.
6. If you disagree with your teammate on some task, how do you handle it?
Round-5:
1. Puzzle question
2. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
3. Tell me a time you worked on something and failed. What did you learn?
4. Explain your job role to a 5-year old.
They care about your skills, rather than your background. They have a template which they provide and you got to fill that, everyone is provided a unique number. You are instructed not to disclose any of your personal details in the due course of your interview.
The interview process was two rounds. The first round was a behavioral interview. Straightforward questions, like tell me about the most technically challenging project you have worked on. The second round was a system design interview.
3 technical rounds of 35-45 mins each for a 5 years experience JS fullstack.
1. Project currently working on + design patterns employed and resume based questions in details to check the depth.
2. System design interview - asked me to mention an approach to design a microservice for retail client. Followed up by questions on why I've chosen a particular tech stack and questions on how to tackle certain situations in real word on such services (inventory + payments etc).
3. DS based test - question was bit easy.