Cisco Software Engineer Phone Screen Questions
20+ questions from real Cisco Software Engineer Phone Screen rounds, reported by candidates who interviewed there.
What does the Cisco Phone Screen round test?
The Cisco phone screen typically lasts 45-60 minutes and evaluates core Software Engineer fundamentals. Candidates should expect 1-2 algorithmic problems, basic system design discussion at senior levels, and questions about relevant experience. The goal is to confirm technical competence before bringing candidates onsite.
Top Topics in This Round
Cisco Software Engineer Phone Screen Questions
Cisco Interview Experience
There were a total of 3 virtual interviews held through their platform Webex. First Round(With Senior QA Lead): - No Coding Questions, Just my background, details, previous experience, the technologies and...
CISCO SDE interview questions
I got shortlisted for an interview at CISCO for SDE position and just finished my interview 30 min before wiriting this post. Background- 3+ yoe, Btech ECE First round was a phone...
Cisco Recruitment | On-campus
Round 1:2 coding questions and some basic aptitude and Gate level questions1. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/dsa/maximum-minimum-values-algebraic-expression/2. The second q...
Cisco Interview Experience | Set 14 (On Campus)
First round Technical1. Write a code for bubble sort.2. What are the osi layers and explain them.3. What are pointers.4. A puzzle : We have two pits with capacities of 5 a...
Cisco | G8 | G10 | Software Engineer
YOE: 3 years 11 months Round 1: Q1. A flavour of Partition point in array \t\toptimised solution in 20mins then discussion on solution for another 10-15mins. \t\t Q2. Fix problems with code TicTacToe \t\twas able to...
Cisco Interview Experience for Network/Embedded/Application Development | ( Off-Campus )
Round 1 ( Technical Interview, 60 min) The interview started with my intro, and then he asked me to explain one of the projects that is written on my resume In that projec...
Senior Software Engineer Cisco experience
Initial Phone Screen: (1 HR) ### - Conducted with the technical director. - Covered questions related to previous experience, Clean Code, and SOLID principles. - Topics included: - Polymorphism explanation. - Comparison between...
Cisco Interview Experience for Candidate Evaluation Rounds
Round 1: Written TestOverviewEngaged in a written test consisting of 50 multiple-choice questions covering math, logic, and computer basics.PreparationPrepared diligently ...
CISCO | 7+ Years Experience
Round 1 Problem 1: Input: s = "42" Output: 42 Input: s = " -42" Output: -42 Input: s = "4193 with words" Output: 4193 Problem 2: Input: intervals = [[1,3],[2,6],[8,10],[15,18]] Output: [[1,6],[8,10],[15,18]] Explanation: Since intervals...
Had 1 hour live coding session for senior back end engineer role. Had two questions, I was able to solve both within the given time passing all test cases. Questions covered topics...
Cisco | SDE2 | 2022 || Offer
Cisco | SDE2 | 2022 || Offer My Profile - 5 years of experience from India and Abu dhabi , Masters in Software Engineering from ASU. I have good amount of...
CISCO INTERSHIP QUESSTION & PROCESS
Round 1(Technical) She asked me to introduce myself and tell about me. I told her the truth that I am Machine Learning enthusiast so she can ask anything in Python,...
Cisco Interview Experience for Software Engineer 2021(Experienced)
Online:5 Programming Questions (easy to medium difficulty)Technical Round 1:Check whether an array has duplicatesWrote code on notepad using sets (n + extra memory)Asked t...
Cisco | Software Engineer 1 | Bangalore | Jan 2021
Background: 1.6 years experience in a Product based company Education : B.Tech I applied through company portal, got a call from HR the very next day to request my availablity for scheduling interviews....
Cisco | SWE (3) | San Jose | September 2021 [Offer]
Status: 4 YOE Position: L4 SDE at Amazon Location: San Jose, CA Date: September 2021 Technical phone screen (1 hour): Questions on multithreading, spring, hashing and string manipulation Virtual Onsite: \t Coding: https://leetcode.com/problems/search-in-rotated-sorted-array \t...
Cisco Interview Experience – Engineering Role
The first round was technical apti + 2 dp problems.The technical apti includes finance, probablity, c, os, dbms.F2FRound 1:1) Since I have mentioned two projects develope...
Cisco Interview Experience - 3+ Years Experienced
I was interviewed for Software Engineer 2 position for CISCO Chennai Campus. I totally had 7 rounds and it took 2 weeks for the complete process.Round 1:This was an hacker...
Twitch | Software Engineer | San Francisco | July 2019 [Rejected]
Phone Screen:- 1) Find all the prime numbers less than a number (Interviewer was looking for a clean solution rather than efficient solution. 2) A simple string pattern matching problem. (Another easy...
Cisco - Software Engineer Staff
Status: 10+ years experience Position: Software Engineer Staff Location: San Jose Date: March 2019 Technical Phone Screen: \t- Level order traversal of a binary tree \t- DFS in a graph Onsite:...
Cisco | SWE Intern | Research Triangle | Summer 2018 [Offer]
Status: 2nd year Computer Engineering grad student @ NCSU Position: Software Engineering Intern Location: Research Triangle Park, North Carolina As a 2nd year graduate student studying Computer Engineering at NCSU, I applied to...
What to Expect in the Cisco Phone Screen Round
The Cisco Software Engineer Phone Screen round has a specific calibration purpose distinct from other rounds in the loop. Across 20+ verified reports on LeakCode for this exact round type, the consistent expectations: clear scoping of the problem before diving into a solution, explicit reasoning about complexity, structured handling of edge cases, and the ability to discuss trade-offs between two reasonable approaches.
Reports tagged with the Phone Screen round at Cisco show recurring patterns in difficulty and topic distribution. The Phone Screen round is typically 45-60 minutes; the interviewer is calibrated against a specific rubric. The discriminator between candidates who advance and candidates who do not is rarely the final correctness of the answer. It is the path: did you clarify, did you verbalize your approach, did you handle edge cases, and did you communicate throughout.
How To Prepare for This Specific Round
Filter the questions below to the most recent reports (past 6-12 months). Questions tagged for this exact round type from this exact company at this exact role level are the highest-signal data available. Older reports may reference questions that have since rotated out of the company's pool.
Practice 4-6 representative problems from this set under timed conditions. The goal is not memorization (companies rotate questions); the goal is to internalize the patterns the interviewer typically reaches for and the depth of follow-up to expect. Reports on LeakCode also tag the typical follow-up depth at this round type, which is the discriminating signal between hire and no-hire calibration.
Phone Screen Round Timing and Format
The Phone Screen round at Cisco typically runs 45-60 minutes. Use the first 2-3 minutes to clarify requirements; you should never start coding or designing without verifying the input/output format, constraints, and edge cases out loud. Use the next 5-7 minutes to verbalize your approach before writing any code. The middle 20-30 minutes are implementation. Reserve the final 10 minutes for testing with concrete examples and discussing optimization or trade-offs.
Time budget discipline is one of the most reliable senior-vs-junior discriminators in this round. Strong candidates verbalize where they are in their budget out loud ("I've used about 20 minutes, I have 15 minutes left for testing and one optimization"). This signals engineering maturity to the interviewer and creates positive feedback they can capture in writing.
Common Failure Modes in This Round
Reports tagged "no hire" at Cisco Software Engineer Phone Screen commonly cite: coding silently without verbalizing approach, jumping to implementation before clarifying requirements, missing edge cases (empty input, single element, very large input), producing working code that the candidate cannot refactor when asked, and failing to test their solution with concrete examples before declaring done.
The single most predictive failure mode in 2025-2026 reports: not asking clarifying questions. Interviewers at all FAANG companies are explicitly trained to weight this dimension. Strong candidates ask 3-5 clarifying questions even on problems that look obvious; weak candidates dive into code immediately. The clarifying-question check is often the first signal recorded in the interviewer's notes.
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