I applied through an employee referral. The process took 4 days. I interviewed at Cisco
Interview
WORST interview experience ever.
It started with a referral for application level position. Got an email requesting time for phone interview. After, deciding that got call from the same engineer that they have to fill the requistion so you will have to come onsite this week. So I rescheduled other interviews and went for the interview. When I reached the building my point of contact was not reachable. I waited in the lobby for 15 minutes and a gentleman from completely different team came and said I will interview you for my team. So from application team to a low level embedded team, what a jump. One of the interview asked me what is the balanced tree. I started explaining about the height and how difference in the height gets to the balanced tree. I was shocked to learn that interviewer's definition of balanced tree was a binary search tree. After explaining the interviewer and interviewer searching on the web for 5 minutes said there are these two definitions of the balanced tree and let's move on. One interviewer was very rigid about the hash chaining implementation. They wanted specific answers to specific questions rather than the thought process. The whole process was wierd.
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.
I applied online. I interviewed at Cisco in May 2026
Interview
Series of 4 interviews, First screening with HR Recruiter, reviewed resume and qualifications, second was hiring manager, reviewed experience and skills. Technical interview with team as a panel type interview, Last with hiring Director.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Technical questions on networking. Experience with work enviroment