My Interview Experience at Polycom
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About PolycomPolycom is a multinational corporation that develops video, voice and content collaboration and communication technology. Polycom employs approximately 3,800 ...
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About Polycom Polycom is a multinational corporation that develops video, voice and content collaboration and communication technology. Polycom employs approximately 3,800 employees and had annual revenues of approximately $1.4 billion in 2013. It is the largest pure-play collaboration company in its industry. The company also licenses: H.264 video codecs, Siren codecs, session initiation protocol, Native 1080p high-definition cameras and displays, Native 720p and 1080p high-definition encoding/decoding, low-latency architecture and low bandwidth utilization, wideband advanced audio coding with low delay (AAC-LD), multichannel spatial audio with echo cancellation and interference filters to eliminate feedback from mobile devices, Optimized environmental conditioning to provide the audio and video experience; and inter-operation with legacy video conferencing (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycom ) Round 1(Written) So, the procedure started with the written round, it had 60 questions consisting of quantitative aptitude, logical reasoning and technical(c/c++, operating systems, computer networks, data structures and algorithms). Around 120 sat for this round and they shortlisted 17. Round 2(Technical Interview 1) The interviewer started from the basics, and then gradually elevated the difficulty level(overall it was easy), the questions asked by him were- Q1. You are given a 32 bit unsigned integer and you have to set the 7th bit in the number. Q2. Create a structure for link list and insert two nodes in it(write the code). (Since i know STL as well, first i coded it in C and then used STL as well) Q3. You are given a pointer to a node in the link list(starting pointer is not given) and you have to delete that node. Q4. Clearly explain the TCP/IP protocol stack alongwith the functioning of each layer. Q5. How does a router routes a packet. Q6. How does a router uses longest prefix matching to route a packet. Q7. What is page fault. Q8. How does a page fault is serviced. (had to tell all about demand paging, modification/dirty bit of a modified page to be replaced) Then he asked me about any networking course i have taken in my Master's coursework, i told him that i didn't. Round 3(Technical Interview 2) The interviewer asked whether i am interested in networking or not, i told him yes i am, but i have only theoretical knowledge about all the protocols and procedures and have very little practical knowledge about it. He said it is enough to answer his questions. Q1. How ping is implemented(told him about the ICMP) Q2. How can you calculate the round trip time and bandwidth of the network using Ping. Q3. Can you measure congestion in the system using Ping and how? Q4. Explain different algorithms that applies in networking domain. Q5. How Minimum Spanning Tree is useful in Networking Domain. Q6. Define Articulation Points and what is its significance in networking. Q7. You are given an array of 0s, 1s and 2s, you have to sort it. (calculating the number of 0s,1s and 2s is not counted as the solution for this problem). Q8. What is Denial of Service attack and what is its remedy? Q9. What is Distributed Denial of Service attack? He was going through my resume and asked me about my GATE notes. Round 4(HR) They shortlisted 6 candidates and asked them to sit in a room and gave two sheets consisting of 50 statements each, the first sheet had 50 positive statements and the 2nd had 50 negative statements and we had to decide whether they are most significant/significant/least significant to us. (we had to answer any 15 of them).
About This Question
This is a reported interview question from a polycom interview for a data science role during the recruiter round reported in 2025.
It covers the following topics: Trees, Networking, Stack Queue, Os, System Design, Arrays, Stack .
Difficulty rating: Easy
Topics
About Polycom Interview Reports
This question was reported by a candidate who interviewed at Polycom. LeakCode aggregates interview reports from 10+ sources, including 1Point3Acres, Glassdoor, LeetCode Discuss, Blind, Reddit, Indeed, and Nowcoder. Each report is translated where necessary, deduplicated against existing entries, and tagged by company, role, round type, and reporting date.
Use this question as one calibration data point, not a memorization target. Companies typically rotate their question pools every 2-4 months; the exact wording of a 2024 question may differ from what you encounter today. The underlying pattern, difficulty level, and follow-up depth at Polycom are the higher-signal extractions to take from this report.
For broader preparation context, the Polycom 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 Polycom reports consistently are the ones worth investing in; one-off niche problems are not.
During Your Polycom 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 Polycom 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.