Status: 2022 Grad, B.Tech
Position: Spring Intern ( Software Engineer - Network/Application )
Date of Offer: 24 January,2022
Stipend: 65000/month
- Recruiters from Cisco rolled out a form on LinkedIn for the off-campus drive of Cisco for Spring Intern role.
- All the registrants received the OA test link.
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Online Assessment : 9 January,2022
Part -1 : MCQs
There were 15 MCQs related to Networks, Troubleshooting, DBMS and other Core CS subjects
Part-2 : Coding Questions
Ques 1: Straightforward Leetcode Medium Question
Link : https://leetcode.com/problems/expressive-words/
Ques 2 : Mango Collection Problem
- Most of the candidates thought this was a DP problem and the problem statement was also lengthy to be understood at the first sight.
- It was simple Matrix Traversal Problem in which you needed to travel all sides/edges of an matrix and collect mangoes if conditions are met with.
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Pre-Assessment Test Before Interview : 16 January,2022
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Those candidates who solved both the coding questions got a Interview call. ( guessing it )
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They organized a 30 minutes Coding Test ( Pre-Assessment ) before interviews.
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It was not an elimination round.
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Coding question : Mobile Phone Simulator
We were given standard old mobile phone and an input string and we need to find which keys were pressed how many times and print the Actual String. I solved it with help of HashMap and Set. It was an easy implementation question.
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Interview Round - 1 : 19 January , 2022 ( 10 AM )
HR facilitators had created a Webex Space and they invited the candidate for the Interviews.
There were two interviewers, both SE from the looks of it. Started with the following questions.
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Tell me about your yourself (the general icebreaker).
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Tell me about time when you faced a difficult challenge.
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Tell me about a time when you needed help from someone during a project.
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Tell me your favorite Data Structures.
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Arrays vs LinkedList ( Pros and Cons )
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Then he moved on to the coding question: https://leetcode.com/problems/intersection-of-two-linked-lists/
He defined the problem statement and told me to explain the approach with complexity analysis. I was able to explain him and then he moved forward.
Next set of questions were from Core CS subjects like :
- What happens when you type "www.google.com" in your browser. Explain the complete workflow
- Difference between router and switch
- TCP vs UDP in depth. What to prefer for Video Streaming online ?
- Indexing Questions from DBMS
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Interview Round - 2 : 19 January , 2022 ( 1 PM )
Got a call from HR that I was selected for 2nd Round.
The interviewer was a Senior Software Engineer at Cisco.
Again started with the questions :
- Tell me about your yourself.
- What work you did in your past Internships.
- Explain your projects.
Moved on to Coding Question.
- Asked me If I was aware about Dynammic Programming.
- Explain the approaches of DP ( Memoization , Tabulation )
- Time Complexity in each of the approaches.
- Which would be the better approach with proper explanantion.
Coding Ques : https://leetcode.com/problems/coin-change/
Explain the edge case along with the approach.
Some General Managerial Questions towards the end of Interview.
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Interview Round - 3 : 19 January , 2022 ( 4 PM )
So this round was pure HR round. Some questions like :
- Why do you want to join Cisco ?
- What motivates you the most ?
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So this was the complete interview experience.
Thanks for reading it patiently.