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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...
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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 hackerank round. 4 questions were asked to solve in 90 minutes. First question is a bit based simple question. Forgot the exact question, but it was easy enough to solve in 10 mins. Second question is to find the middle element(s) of the linked list. Third question is to find the longest palindromic substring. Final question is to Find distance between two nodes in a tree.
Round 2 Submitted solutions for all the questions in the first round and got selected to second round. All further rounds were conducted in CISCO Chennai campus.
Round 2 Round 6 were conducted in a single day in CISCO campus. In round 2, a printed question paper was given with 10 C programmatic questions and asked to solve in 45 mins. Don't remember the exact questions asked in this round. But the questions were asked around pointers, unions, structures, find why the program crashes(array out of bound access), find the output(string manipulations), Little and Big Endian etc..,
Round 3 After round 2 all other rounds were F2F. In round 3 I was asked two datastructure questions. Find height of the given tree. Find the output of the given mathematical expression like {(3*4)+(5/6)}. (Stack based approach) You will be expected to provide an algorithm first and then will be asked to give a full working code. Round 4-5-6: From Round 4 onwards it was like managerial+Technical kind of rounds. I was asked about my previous experiences, achievements, toughest solved problems. All questions were based on my resume. So be prepared with your resume. I felt all these rounds were tiring and boring, because all questions were similar and repetitive.
Round 7 After completing 5 rounds in CISCO campus, they told that I will be having one more round with the Director. But he was unavailable that day. So I was asked to have that over WebEX. That round is also is similar to the previous rounds and based on my resume only. After 4-5 days, I got a call from CISCO saying that I got selected. CISCO provided a good package with benefits.
About This Question
This is a candidate experience report from a cisco interview for a swe role (director level) during the phone screen round reported in 2019.
It covers the following topics: Linked List, Trees, Strings, Bit Manipulation, Sql, Stack Queue, Arrays, Stack .
Difficulty rating: Easy
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For broader preparation context, the Cisco interview process typically includes a recruiter screen, one or two technical phone screens, and a 4-5 round on-site loop covering coding, system design (at L4+ levels), and behavioral. Reports tagged on LeakCode show the round-by-round distribution and typical difficulty calibration. To browse questions filtered by round type and seniority, use the company hub linked above.
How To Practice This Type of Question
Solve similar problems on LeetCode under timed conditions (25-35 minutes per medium difficulty). The goal is pattern recognition: recognize the underlying technique (sliding window, two-pointer, BFS, memoized recursion, etc.) within 60-90 seconds of reading. Strong candidates verbalize their hypothesis out loud before coding, then iterate based on feedback. Weak candidates dive into implementation immediately, lose time on the wrong approach, and run out of time for follow-ups.
Companies update their question pools every 2-4 months. The exact wording of any given question may have been retired by the time you interview. Focus your prep on the pattern, not the specific problem. The patterns that appear in Cisco reports consistently are the ones worth investing in; one-off niche problems are not.
During Your Cisco Round
Apply the standard interview round template: clarify requirements (2-3 minutes), state your approach out loud and confirm direction with the interviewer (3-5 minutes), code with narration (15-25 minutes), test with concrete examples including edge cases (5 minutes), discuss optimization or trade-offs if time permits (5 minutes). This template is universally accepted across FAANG and adjacent companies; deviating from it produces weaker interviewer feedback signal.
The single most predictive failure mode in Cisco reports tagged "no hire": not asking clarifying questions. Interviewers are explicitly trained to weight this. 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 written notes.