CISCO INTERSHIP QUESSTION & PROCESS

I recently interviewed for an internship at Cisco, which involved three distinct rounds: two technical and one managerial. The overall experience was insightful, and I eventually received an offer.

Round 1 (Technical)

This round began with an introduction where I candidly shared my passion for Machine Learning, Python, and Deep Learning, mentioning my basic knowledge of C and lack of extensive competitive programming experience. The interviewer acknowledged my programming fundamentals and then posed two coding challenges. First, I was asked to write a C function to determine if a given number is a power of two, which I easily explained and coded. The second question involved searching for a number in a sorted and rotated array efficiently. My solution utilized binary search, and I was subsequently asked to implement binary search in my preferred language. We also discussed complexity theory, and I was asked to code Quick Sort. I initially struggled with Quick Sort, but the interviewer was incredibly helpful, even explaining the concept with an example. This round lasted about 25-30 minutes, with a significant portion dedicated to my ML projects and their underlying algorithms.

Round 2 (Managerial)

This round proved to be quite challenging. The manager reviewed my resume and immediately expressed concern, stating that his department was not involved in AI/ML/DL, fields prominently featured on my resume. He directly questioned why he should hire me, suggesting it would be a waste of both my time and Cisco's resources. While I initially perceived this as a test of patience, my passion for AI led me to counter his argument. I pointed out that Cisco's earlier presentation highlighted their involvement in AI/ML/DL, questioning why his department specifically wasn't. He clarified that while Cisco as a whole works in AI, his specific department did not. I then argued that given another year before joining Cisco, I could learn new areas, much like how I had learned AI/ML/DL from scratch in the past year, completing two internships. He appreciated my response but remained somewhat unconvinced. He then asked if I had interviewed elsewhere, which I, regrettably, falsely denied, claiming Cisco was my first choice. This led to a follow-up about my long-standing interest in Cisco, which I also falsely affirmed. When asked for the CEO's name, I couldn't recall it. The manager advised me to be more careful with my answers, but ultimately, he seemed satisfied with the interview's outcome, asking me to wait for further rounds. Despite my blunders, I was eventually selected.

Round 3 (Technical)

Two interviewers conducted this final technical round. After my introduction, a power outage occurred due to heavy rain, which I used as an opportunity to elaborate on my projects. Once the power returned, they transitioned to DSA and puzzle questions. We briefly discussed my favorite cricketer (MS Dhoni) and my role in cricket, given my mention of it. Then, they presented three main questions. The first coding question asked me to write code to swap adjacent nibbles in a number. My initial solution was unoptimized, and they hinted at using bitwise operators, which I later realized was given earlier when they asked if I knew operators. I successfully optimized it using 'or' and 'xor', significantly reducing space complexity. We also discussed the time and space complexity of my algorithms. The second question was a puzzle: calculating the maximum distance a car can run with four new wheels and one new spare, where each wheel lasts 20,000 km. I was close but made a calculation error and couldn't find the exact answer before they moved on. The final coding question involved writing efficient code to count the frequency of each character in a string. I explained an initial method and was able to further optimize it as requested. They seemed satisfied with my solutions throughout this round.