Software Engineer Interview Experience - Milpitas, California
Process
School Job Fair: Talked to the recruiter, discussed previous work experience, and asked him to pass along my resume for consideration for an interview.
1st Interview: On-campus interview after the job fair. It was a 30-minute screening interview.
2nd Round Interviews: On Cisco campus in San Jose. All people interviewing for the position went through three back-to-back interviews with hiring managers. Each interview was approximately 30 minutes. Most questions were question-and-answer type questions rather than coding problems. More emphasis was put on discussing previous work experience.
Questions
(forgot the exact question) but it was to write code that did bitwise operations and then to optimize it.
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Interview Statistics
The following metrics were computed from 11 interview experiences for the Cisco Software Engineer role in Milpitas, California.
Success Rate
Cisco's interview process for their Software Engineer roles in Milpitas, California is on the easier side as most engineers get an offer after going through it.
Experience Rating
Candidates reported having very good feelings for Cisco's Software Engineer interview process in Milpitas, California.
Cisco Work Experiences
- 2.0Improving quality starts with managementSoftware Engineer • Current EmployeeMilpitas, California, United StatesDecember 20, 2008Pros: If you want stability, good benefits, flexibility, and management that is more likely to shuffle staff around than fire them, then this is the place.Cons: There is probably no money for fair raises and promotions because you were stupid enough to join Cisco directly, rather than a start-up that got bought out. Too much critical software is farmed out to contract engineering firms with a questionable quality track record; you may end up constantly cleaning their mess. Products have long lifetimes, so there is a lot of legacy code and "historical reasons" for poor designs. Project management is chaotic. Processes are paperwork-heavy but still do not result in good documentation of software and designs.
- 4.0Chill Team, Layoff WorriesSoftware Engineer • Current EmployeeMilpitas, California, United StatesSeptember 17, 2025Pros: People are chill and helpful, great work-life balance.Cons: Layoffs twice a year, no matter how good. The rewards cycle disappoints more often than not.
- 4.0Good Work, High TurnoverSoftware Engineer • Current EmployeeMilpitas, California, United StatesOctober 26, 2016Pros: Core networking jobs Great benefits Decent packagesCons: Too much turnaround of talent.
Cisco Interview Questions
