I applied through college or university. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Cisco (San Jose, CA) in Jan 2010
Interview
I submitted my resume through Cisco.com for a Software Engineering internship position. It took about a month for them to contact me back. The recruiter called me for a phone interview, the questions were pretty easy. It's more of a review of my resume and background. I was called into an onsite interview about a week later with the hiring manager. The questions were pretty easy, I guess it was because I was applying for an internship position. He asked me basic PHP questions, how does web application works, some networking fundamentals and some design questions. Then, I was interviewed individually by the entire team and extended team. It was a pretty long 5 hours interview. The interviewer were really nice and took a lot of notes during the interviews. You should really study and prepare for the interviews in both technical and soft skills questions. They offered me the internship about two weeks later.
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Cisco (Chicago, IL)
Interview
March 13th; Took a hackerrank exam, 3 easy-med leetcode DSAs. One was rotating a matrix and the other was a binary search. And the third was a basic sql. Did not hear back until July.
Standard panel, very simple leetcodes. reverse linked list kind of vibe s . I was literarly asked about how a linked list is structured and reversing it. there was almost no friction which I was shocked by one of the reason I did not accept
I applied online. I interviewed at Cisco (Bengaluru) in Jun 2026
Interview
The interview started well and covered backend concepts, Java, system design, and coding. I answered the questions confidently and had a positive interaction throughout.
After receiving the rejection, I spoke with HR to understand the feedback. I was informed that the interviewer believed I was looking at answers during the interview. This came as a surprise because I was not referring to any external material. I have a habit of looking away while thinking or recalling concepts, which I believe may have been misunderstood.
I wish this concern had been raised during the interview so I could have clarified it immediately. If there are concerns about a candidate’s behavior, discussing them in real time or asking for a room scan can help avoid misunderstandings.
Overall, the interview questions were fair, but I feel my evaluation was influenced by this misunderstanding rather than my technical performance.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Sort a nearly sorted array. I was asked for an optimal solution and discussed the time and space complexity.