Interview Experiences

Real candidates, real loops: every round, what was asked, and how it ended.

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8 stories

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CiscoSoftware Engineer
Sep 2026

HR Screen, Then a River-Crossing Brainteaser Instead of Coding

I applied for an SDE role on the Switch team. The first round was over Wedex, 30 minutes, with a female HR person. She asked things like where I live and where I'm eligible to work — that kind of question, nothing about my past experience. At the end I asked her how to prepare for the next round. She said this one would be switch-related, so I should probably brush up on some switching fundamenta…

Technical Screen0
CiscoSoftware Engineer
Jul 2026

Rejected for Background Mismatch After a Resume-Heavy Technical Screen

My first round was a technical phone screen with a TL. They said it was technical, but since my experience and the role (low level/embedding) weren't a great match, they spent a lot of time deep-diving into my resume. On top of that, my big-tech infra project architecture was fairly simple, and I had to explain some of the tools I'd used, so before I knew it, 50 minutes were gone. The coding ques…

RejectedTechnical Screen0
CiscoSoftware Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Cisco Software Engineer interview: fair questions and disputed cheating concern

I entered the interviews confident because the questions matched my strengths: backend concepts, Java, system design, and coding. The interaction felt positive, and I believed I answered clearly. After the rejection, I spoke with HR to understand what happened. I learned that the interviewer thought I was looking at answers during the interview. That surprised me because I was not using anything…

RejectedTechnical Screen0
CiscoSoftware Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Cisco Software Engineer interview: assessment followed by weeks of silence

My process began with a Hackerrank-style exam. It included several easy-to-medium LeetCode-style problems and a simple SQL question, so it felt manageable compared with harder online assessments I had heard about. After I finished, I heard nothing for weeks. The silence eventually ended without further progress, so the outcome felt less like the result of an interview conversation and more like a…

Online Assessment0
CiscoSoftware Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Cisco Software Engineer interview: networking OA cutoff

The process began with an online assessment, and the later interview path depended on that result. For me, the OA was the gate. I solved some questions, but my overall performance was not strong enough to continue. There was no detailed technical follow-up afterward, only the sense that the feedback did not support moving forward. The assessment covered networking and C fundamentals: subnetting,…

Online Assessment0
CiscoSoftware Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Cisco Software Engineer interview: a broad and difficult online assessment

The OA was difficult from the beginning and covered far more than I'd expected. It mixed multiple-choice questions, coding and several subjective scenario sections. One section used short passages followed by questions I had to answer in words. Switching from coding to those judgment-based tasks was immediately challenging. The coding was hard too, requiring both speed and correctness. My backgro…

RejectedOnline Assessment0
CiscoSoftware Engineer
Reported Jul 2026

Cisco Software Engineer interview: OA programming barrier and design discussion

My process started with an online assessment and moved quickly into interview rounds, though I did not make it all the way through. The assessment combined many multiple-choice questions with programming tasks, and I could tell early that the programming section would decide things. When I was unsuccessful, the gap was clearly more about solving than simply understanding concepts. The interviews…

RejectedOnline Assessment0
CiscoSoftware Engineer
Reported Jun 2026

Cisco Software Engineer interview experience

The technical questions leaned toward systems thinking and networking fundamentals. I was asked about stack and heap basics, what causes segmentation faults, and how I would approach debugging a stack overflow. Networking came up too, including wireless concepts and the differences between OFDMA and OFDM. The conversation stayed informal. Even when the topics got detailed, I was encouraged to exp…

Technical Screen0

What are interview experiences?

An interview experience is a candidate's own account of a hiring loop — not a question bank entry. It tells you the shape of the process: how many rounds there were, what each round actually tested, how long the gaps between them ran, and what the recruiter said at the end. That context is the part a question list cannot give you.

How to read them

Weight recent write-ups more heavily — interview loops change, often within a year. Read several for the same company and role rather than one: a single account tells you what one interviewer asked, while five tell you what the bar is. Note the outcome badge too, since a rejection write-up usually explains the gap far more precisely than an offer one.

Share your own

Every published experience earns 50 XP, and each of the first 3 likes it receives in a day earns you 10 XP more. Likes must come from established accounts; like-for-like swaps and likes from your own second account are not paid. Write it while the details are fresh — the round order, the exact prompts, and how much time you were given are what the next reader needs.

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