I applied through an employee referral. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Cisco (Bengaluru) in May 2024
Interview
This was for a Grade 6 Software engineer - SRE role and in total 4 rounds.
Round 1: HackerRank Programming Challenge
These were 2 coding questions of medium difficulty.
Round 2: Python MicroServices
This round was mainly focussed on knowledge on micro-services in python. I was asked to code a rate-limiter using Flask.
Interviewer was really good and polite and helped me during each step. Even though with my limited experience with Flask, I was able to get through this round because of him.
Round 3: TroubleShooting, Docker, Linux Fundamentals.
This round focussed on troubleshooting skills, linux networking fundamentals and dockerfile.
I was asked on file permissions, user groups, CPU, memory related questions. Then had to write a dockerfile to containerise a flask application and troubleshoot a dying container using logs.
Interviewer was very helpful and allowed use of google to look for specific commands and syntax when / if needed. This was very engaging and truly tested on SRE and troubleshooting skills.
Round 4: Hiring Manager round.
This round was focussed on my projects, work in current organisation etc. We discussed on ideal deployment strategies in multi-cloud environments, designed a CI/CD for cloud-agnostinc setup, synthetics, monitoring, observability best practices etc. The HM was very kind, and kept it engaging. He then explained me the current role and expectations from me.
Overall experience was really good and found interviewers very helpful.
Interview questions [3]
Question 1
Deployment Strategies, as in Canary, Rolling and Blue-Green
Standard panel, very simple leetcodes. reverse linked list kind of vibe s . I was literarly asked about how a linked list is structured and reversing it. there was almost no friction which I was shocked by one of the reason I did not accept
They care about your skills, rather than your background. They have a template which they provide and you got to fill that, everyone is provided a unique number. You are instructed not to disclose any of your personal details in the due course of your interview.
The interview process was two rounds. The first round was a behavioral interview. Straightforward questions, like tell me about the most technically challenging project you have worked on. The second round was a system design interview.