I've experienced it once before. Cisco (company name) The overall feeling of Virtual Onsite is that the pace is quite fast and the scope of investigation is also very comprehensive. Compared to traditional tech companies, Cisco will ask more questions about networking, and the coding questions are more focused on clarity of thought.
Interview process recollection
Coding Ring: Lowest Common Ancestor
The first thing that came up was coding, and the topic was very classic:
"Given a binary tree, write a function to return the lowest common ancestor of two given nodes."
At first I was so nervous that the first version of the recursive code ignored the null checkThe code almost hung up on the edge case. I was reminded by the real-time voice assistants to make up the check, and the code ran smoothly after the adjustment. The interviewer also asked what to do if you want to write an iterative version, so I added the idea of using stack to simulate DFS, which kind of covers the whole answer.
Networking Basic Study
The second part of the test is the TCP three-way handshake:
"Explain how TCP three-way handshake works, and what happens if the last ACK is lost."
At first, I only talked about the SYN → SYN-ACK → ACK process, and I thought it was enough. The interviewer asked me what to do in a packet loss scenario, and I almost got stuck. Luckily, my assistant reminded me to add: if the last ACK is lost, the server will remain half-connected and rely on the timeout retransmission mechanism to solve the problem. The interviewer was satisfied after this detail was clarified.
System Design: Load Balancer
The last part is the system design:
"Design a load balancer for handling millions of requests per second."
I started with round-robin scheduling + health check, and the interviewer immediately asked how to handle data locality and session stickiness. At that time, I was blank for a while, and almost only stuck on the cookie stickiness solution. I was almost stuck on the cookie stickiness scenario, but I was able to add consistent hashing in time, so I was able to answer the key points. Later, I also expanded on fault tolerance, heartbeat detection and auto-scaling to complete the architectural integrity.
Overall impression
The whole Cisco VO gave me the impression that the difficulty of the questions was moderate, but the interviewer's questioning was very fast-paced and tight on details. If you only answer the surface of each question, it is easy to be pressed until you have nothing to say. The real-time voice assist helped me a lot, so I didn't drop the ball on a few key points.
Summarize
Overall feeling of Cisco's VO:
- Coding is on the basic side, but the test is very detailed.
- Networking is Cisco's strong suit and will be asked, so be prepared.
- System design should be thought of in the context of networking, not just as a generic solution.
This time, I was able to pass relatively smoothly, really thanks to the remote voice assistance, reminding me to fill in the edge case and add key points at critical times, otherwise it would be easy to miss.
Frequently Asked Questions FAQ
Q1. Cisco VO How long does it usually take to get results?
👉 Usually feedback will come in 3-5 business days, but it depends on the interviewer and HR's schedule. I got an update two days after my interview.
Q2: What are the main difficulties with Cisco VO?
👉 The biggest challenge is still the time pressure of coding and system design, the topics are not particularly biased, but the details are easy to get stuck. I was lucky to have Programhelp's real-time voice alerts to pull me back in time when I got stuck.
Q3: Does Cisco VO test deep networking knowledge?
👉 Will be examined, but will not be particularly tricky, more basic TCP/IP, routing, packet handling, etc. If you have networking in your background, it is quite an advantage. If you have networking in your background, you have a big advantage; but even if you don't specialize in it, Programhelp can help you sort out the high-frequency test points in advance.
Q4: What is the difference between a Cisco VO and an Amazon/Google VO?
👉 Cisco places more emphasis on system reliability + scalabilityThe questions will be close to real-world networking scenarios and not purely in a brushing style. The pace is a little slower than Amazon, but not to be taken lightly.
Q5: What should I do if I suddenly get stuck during VO?
👉 Don't panic, you can verbalize your thoughts first. Like the time I was coding, my brain suddenly short-circuited. Luckily, Programhelp's voice reminded me to write pseudo code first, which gave me some time to buffer myself.
About PROGRAMHELP
This Cisco VO can be passed smoothly, in fact, can not be separated from the PROGRAMHELP team's real-time assistance. A brief introduction:
Our team consists of 7 people, all from top IT colleges and universities at home and abroad, four of whom have master's degree backgrounds from Oxford, Princeton, and Peking University, and the remaining three are currently working at Amazon, Google, and Ali. Every senior is a real engineer, with first-line experience and hands-on counseling. All programs are directly connected, no intermediary difference, high efficiency, and 24-48 hours expedited.
