Cisco

Role: Summer Internship 2025

College: Not Specified

Interview Date: Online Assessment: September 2, 2024; Interview Call: October 11, 2024; First Interview: October 14, 2024; Second Interview: October 22, 2024; Third Interview (ETR): October 28, 2024

Interview Type: Off-Campus, Internship

Result: Selected

Difficulty: Medium

Rounds: 3 interview rounds + Online Assessment

Topics Asked: Computer Networks, OOPs, Operating Systems, DBMS, Aptitude, Computer Fundamentals, Dynamic Programming, Graphs, Data Structures (Frequency of Characters), System Design.

Experience:

The candidate applied through a referral on the Cisco Careers portal after finding the opening on LinkedIn.

Online Assessment (September 2, 2024): This round consisted of two sections. The MCQ section had 42 questions covering Computer Networks, OOPs, Operating Systems, DBMS, Aptitude, and Computer Fundamentals, which the candidate found easy. The DSA section included 2 questions: one based on Dynamic Programming and the other on Graphs. The candidate mentioned their DSA section didn't go too well, but the MCQ section likely led to their shortlisting.

Interview Call (October 11, 2024): The candidate received a call from a recruiter informing them of their shortlisting and confirming availability. They were also asked to share their resume in a specific inclusive format.

First Interview Round (Technical) (October 14, 2024): This round was with a Software Engineer and lasted about 45 minutes. It majorly focused on the candidate's previous internship experience and projects, requiring in-depth knowledge. A basic DSA question was asked (similar to "Frequency of Characters in Alphabetical Order"). The candidate noted not asking enough clarifying questions before coding, leading to an incorrect output, which shifted the interview towards debugging skills.

Second Interview Round (Technical) (October 22, 2024): This was a "Hiring Manager" round with an Engineering Leader, lasting 45 minutes to an hour. It started with an introduction, followed by questions on the candidate's favorite subject (Networks), quizzing them on various protocols and their applications. They were also asked about data structures for storing an Employee Database and the time complexity for actions on it.

Third Interview Round (The ETR Connect Round) (October 28, 2024): This round steered towards System Design. The candidate was asked to design an app similar to Instagram, given 5 minutes to think of a basic architecture. A follow-up question on delay handling in distributed systems was asked, which the candidate couldn't answer correctly. The interview ended with the candidate asking questions about the team and intern roles.

About 2 hours after the ETR round, the candidate received a mail informing them of their selection for the Summer Internship 2025.