Cisco TAC Engineer Interview Experience - Bengaluru, Karnataka
October 1, 2015
Neutral ExperienceNo Offer
Process
I applied through Elitmus. The first round was a written test with 45 questions, divided as follows:
- 20 on C
- 5 on DBMS
- 25 on networking
This round was one hour long. The networking section was quite difficult, especially since I had only two days to prepare. Approximately 250 people took this test, and roughly 70 reached the interview stage.
My first interviewer was friendly, and the 1:1 session went smoothly. It included basic networking questions and some "what would you do in this..." type scenarios. Some candidates did not make it past this round.
The final round was supposed to be an HR interview, so I was feeling somewhat relaxed. However, destiny played a cruel trick. In the next round, I faced two interviewers who thoroughly grilled me on networking, and then it was over.
Questions
What are the various protocols in the various layers?
How would you troubleshoot this?
Why should we hire you?
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Interview Statistics
The following metrics were computed from 3 interview experiences for the Cisco Cisco TAC Engineer role in Bengaluru, Karnataka.
Success Rate
33%
Pass Rate
Cisco's interview process for their Cisco TAC Engineer roles in Bengaluru, Karnataka is fairly selective, failing a large portion of engineers who go through it.
Experience Rating
Positive67%
Neutral33%
Negative0%
Candidates reported having very good feelings for Cisco's Cisco TAC Engineer interview process in Bengaluru, Karnataka.
Cisco Work Experiences
4.0
Good Balance, Team Dependent
Cisco TAC Engineer • Current Employee
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
October 19, 2025
Pros: Work-Life Balance
Internal Learnings
Cons: No appraisal if you are not on the right team.
3.0
Good Culture, Rough Hours
Cisco TAC Engineer • Former Employee
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
April 30, 2024
Pros: Great infrastructure.
Good food on campus.
Good company culture.
Employee First.
Cons: Higher leadership is somewhat mechanical. They could definitely improve on working hours and work distribution.
4.0
Great Culture, Demanding Cases
Cisco TAC Engineer • Former Employee
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
February 16, 2023
Pros: Great work culture and managers. A lot of projects (work) is available, and people are available to help everywhere. The team culture in general is great across all teams. If you have to do anything with networks and networks are your long-term career goal, then there is absolutely no better place than Cisco. There is a lot of training available, high-end labs with tons of devices, and opportunities to earn so many industry-level certificates, and all this is free of cost.
Cons: At the end of the day, it is a network support role after all. Even if you might take up a lot of automation Python projects, you have to take care of your cases/backlog. You might feel burnt out in a few high-severity cases as well (very similar to what software devs face when their 'feature' is about to 'go live'), but that gets easier with time and experience.
The nature of the job can be viewed in two ways:
* **Positive:** You are Sherlock Holmes, who has to investigate and use your skills on multiple cases.
* **Negative:** Your work basically starts when things are going wrong. So you are almost always dealing with a mental 'timer' as people are waiting for you to provide solutions or answers, and most of the times it is not easy.
Multiple logs, timestamps, data correlation – and since you are not the one who has written the code, except for a few rare days, mostly you will have a lot of emails to write and multiple logs to check.
Salary growth can be slow (as far as I am aware, 10-18% is standard); however, if your communication with management is positive and your manager assures you, then it can be worth the wait. Exponential increment after a span of 2-3 years is common, I have heard.
This will vary a lot based on an individual's experience and the work they have put in, so not really a con.
Lot of mandatory trainings :-P
- 4.0Good Balance, Team DependentCisco TAC Engineer • Current EmployeeBengaluru, Karnataka, IndiaOctober 19, 2025Pros: Work-Life Balance Internal LearningsCons: No appraisal if you are not on the right team.
- 3.0Good Culture, Rough HoursCisco TAC Engineer • Former EmployeeBengaluru, Karnataka, IndiaApril 30, 2024Pros: Great infrastructure. Good food on campus. Good company culture. Employee First.Cons: Higher leadership is somewhat mechanical. They could definitely improve on working hours and work distribution.
- 4.0Great Culture, Demanding CasesCisco TAC Engineer • Former EmployeeBengaluru, Karnataka, IndiaFebruary 16, 2023Pros: Great work culture and managers. A lot of projects (work) is available, and people are available to help everywhere. The team culture in general is great across all teams. If you have to do anything with networks and networks are your long-term career goal, then there is absolutely no better place than Cisco. There is a lot of training available, high-end labs with tons of devices, and opportunities to earn so many industry-level certificates, and all this is free of cost.Cons: At the end of the day, it is a network support role after all. Even if you might take up a lot of automation Python projects, you have to take care of your cases/backlog. You might feel burnt out in a few high-severity cases as well (very similar to what software devs face when their 'feature' is about to 'go live'), but that gets easier with time and experience. The nature of the job can be viewed in two ways: * **Positive:** You are Sherlock Holmes, who has to investigate and use your skills on multiple cases. * **Negative:** Your work basically starts when things are going wrong. So you are almost always dealing with a mental 'timer' as people are waiting for you to provide solutions or answers, and most of the times it is not easy. Multiple logs, timestamps, data correlation – and since you are not the one who has written the code, except for a few rare days, mostly you will have a lot of emails to write and multiple logs to check. Salary growth can be slow (as far as I am aware, 10-18% is standard); however, if your communication with management is positive and your manager assures you, then it can be worth the wait. Exponential increment after a span of 2-3 years is common, I have heard. This will vary a lot based on an individual's experience and the work they have put in, so not really a con. Lot of mandatory trainings :-P
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