I applied through an employee referral. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Cisco (San Jose, CA)
Interview
A member of my business network contacted me about positions Cisco was looking to fill. I had 9 interviews (face to face, and phone) with future subordinates, peers, hiring manager, VP, EVP, and HR. The interviews were both behaviorally and technically based. The people were brilliant, extremely hardworking, collegial and ambitious. They had deep belief in and loyalty to the company. The culture was focussed, customer driven, and values based. Despite the extremely demanding hiring and interview process (and I got off light with only 9 interviews, typically it was a minimum of 12) it was the best company I ever worked for.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Define an Internet strategy (from a business, industry as well as technological perspective) for F100 customer appropriate for the CXO-level.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Cisco (Bengaluru) in Aug 2025
Interview
Moderate difficulty, covering networking, embedded systems programming, people management and project management. Focus on test infrastructure, test coverage, CI/CD infrastructure. Innovative thinking for business problems. Linux system programming. Hiring manager, recruiter were cordial. Team members were professional and courteous. Was a positive experience
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Examples of scenarios of handling under performance
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Cisco (London, England) in Jan 2025
Interview
They asked many, many technical questions. Eventually, they said no after realising I lack experience in the field. Overall a lot of technical and enterprise knowledge is required for this role.
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 4 months. I interviewed at Cisco (Raleigh, NC) in Mar 2015
Interview
Contacted by recruiter to start formal interview process. The recruiter phone screen included basic questions about my background, salary expectations, and qualifications. The recruiter gave me basic information about the role, the team and the process. This was followed by WebEx interviews with the hiring manager and two senior people on the team.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The interviews were not difficult. I wasn't grilled with questions. The interviews were basically conversations about my skills and experience and the needs and goals of the team.