The hiring process at Cisco takes an average of 46 days when considering 2 user submitted interviews across all job titles. Candidates applying for CSM had the quickest hiring process (on average 1 day), whereas Intern Field Sales roles had the slowest hiring process (on average 90 days).
It was difficult especially when getting interviewed by multiple people back to back. However, majority of the questions were based from the job description and technical knowledge as well. Overall, just prepare well and you will do great.
I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Cisco (Research Triangle Park, NC) in Oct 2025
Interview
Incredibly long process. I haven't experienced this many rounds of interviews before. I think there were four panels. The technical panels weren't super technical and the strategic panels weren't very strategic, IMHO.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How do you deal with a difference of opinion of senior leadership?
A very fair technical interview with two software engineers. They asked me about my project and we discussed it at length, before going into a whiteboard DSA-style question. The question was fairly easy, but they are very insistent on writing it out by hand on a whiteboard. The process was extremely fair, and even when I was struggling with the implementation and messing things up, I felt that the interviewers were trying to help me.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Leetcode #88 but with the twist that the intervals are not at the end of the larger array but rather are randomly placed in the array.