Getting an interview for a hardware engineer role at Cisco Systems is exciting but also nerve-wracking. Cisco is one of the top technology companies in the world so the interview will be rigorous.
To help you prepare, I’ve put together this guide covering 12 of the most common Cisco hardware engineer interview questions, along with tips on how to ace your responses. Read on to learn how to show the interviewers your technical expertise and problem-solving skills.
1. Why Do You Want to Work at Cisco?
Cisco will want to know that you have a genuine interest in the company and the role. Do your research beforehand so you can speak knowledgeably. Mention specifics like:
- Cisco’s leadership in cutting-edge networking hardware and technologies
- The chance to work on complex, large-scale projects
- Cisco’s reputation as an innovator and industry leader
- Opportunities to collaborate with top experts in the field
Emphasize that working for Cisco would be an ideal way to challenge yourself and take your career to the next level
2. What Experience Do You Have Designing and Developing Hardware?
Be ready to provide an overview of your hands-on hardware experience. Focus on key skills like:
- Designing circuit boards, routers, switches, and other network hardware
- Selecting and testing components like processors and memory
- Writing firmware and device drivers
- Using design and simulation tools like Cadence, Synopsys, and Ansys
- Debugging and troubleshooting to find root causes of hardware issues
Highlight any experience creating innovative product designs or managing full development lifecycles
3. How Do You Stay Up-To-Date on New Hardware Technologies?
Cisco wants to see that you are passionate about the industry and continuously learning. Ways to demonstrate this include:
- Reading industry publications like EE Times and IEEE Spectrum
- Attending conferences like the Design Automation Conference
- Completing certifications like the Cisco Certified Network Associate
- Experimenting with new hardware like FPGAs or the Raspberry Pi
- Learning new programming languages like Verilog or VHDL
Share how you apply what you learn to improve your engineering skills.
4. How Would You Test and Validate a New Hardware Product Design?
Walk through your systematic approach to testing and validation, such as:
- Developing comprehensive test cases based on product requirements
- Performing unit testing on individual hardware components
- Conducting system integration testing to validate overall functionality
- Leveraging techniques like boundary testing and fuzzing to find flaws
- Executing tests across a range of operating conditions and use cases
- Analyzing test results to identify and resolve defects
Emphasize how you ensure thorough testing before release.
5. Tell Me About a Time You Led a Hardware Project.
Share a specific example that highlights your project leadership skills. Focus on key areas like:
- Collaborating cross-functionally with software engineers, product managers, etc.
- Breaking down complex projects into manageable components
- Developing plans and estimates for budget, resources, timelines
- Monitoring progress and making adjustments to keep projects on track
- Communicating status updates and results to stakeholders
- Leading engineers and providing mentoring/guidance
Demonstrate how your leadership enabled the project’s success.
6. How Do You Prioritize Tasks When Managing Multiple Projects?
Describe your approach to juggle priorities on concurrent projects, such as:
- Consulting with managers to understand top priorities and deadlines
- Creating detailed plans with deliverables, owners, and timeframes
- Focusing first on high-impact tasks with approaching deadlines
- Revisiting priorities frequently and adjusting as needed
- Being transparent about trade-offs and risks of deprioritizing items
- Asking for help if overload becomes an issue
Show that you can balance priorities wisely even during crunch times.
7. What Is Your Greatest Weakness as an Engineer?
Be honest, but put a positive spin on your weakness. For example:
- Early in your career, you focused too much on the technical details instead of the big picture. You’ve since improved your abilities to zoom out and see the full scope.
- You sometimes dive into solving a problem before fully defining requirements. You’ve gotten better at taking a step back to clearly understand needs first.
- In the past, you waited too long to ask for help when stuck. You’ve learned the value of reaching out sooner to unblock yourself.
Demonstrate self-awareness and highlight the steps you’ve taken to improve.
8. How Do You Handle Working With Tight Deadlines and Changing Priorities?
Acknowledge that changing priorities and tight deadlines are common in hardware engineering. Describe strategies like:
- Creating detailed project plans with some padding for contingencies
- Setting milestone check-ins to reassess priorities as projects evolve
- Pushing back on unrealistic deadlines that would force compromises in quality
- Managing your time and focus to deliver the most high-impact tasks first
- Communicating proactively about trade-offs and risks as priorities shift
- Asking for support if deadlines start significantly impacting your work-life balance
Show that you can adapt smoothly while delivering excellent results, even under pressure.
9. Tell Me About a Time You Dealt With a Difficult Coworker and How You Handled it.
Keep your response professional. Focus on:
- The specific actions you took to address the conflict constructively
- How you found common ground and worked towards compromise or consensus
- How you maintained a respectful attitude and stayed focused on shared goals, not personalities
- Any assistance or team building interventions you pursued from your manager
- What you learned from the experience in terms of improving your approach to difficult coworkers
Demonstrate emotional intelligence and show that you aim to resolve conflicts in a mature manner.
10. Why Do You Want to Leave Your Current Job?
If relevant, emphasize positive reasons like:
- Wanting to work for an industry-leading company like Cisco
- Seeking new challenges and growth opportunities
- Looking to expand your skills in a new role or domain
Avoid bashing your current job or boss. Stay focused on the future and your enthusiasm to join Cisco.
11. Where Do You See Yourself in 5 Years?
Present ambitious but realistic goals:
- Taking on greater responsibilities and leadership roles
- Managing large, mission-critical hardware projects end-to-end
- Leading a team of engineers to build innovative new products
- Developing expertise in an emerging domain like AI/ML hardware
- Evolving into a staff-level principal engineer role
Show that you’re excited about progressing your career at Cisco for the long-term.
12. Do You Have Any Questions for Me?
Prepare at least 2-3 thoughtful questions that demonstrate your interest, such as:
- How do hardware teams collaborate with software engineers at Cisco?
- What training opportunities are available to help me ramp up quickly?
- What are the most exciting hardware projects underway that I could contribute to?
- How would you describe the engineering culture at Cisco?
Smart questions show your engagement and help you determine if Cisco is the right fit.
Following these tips will help you impress the interviewers and show that you have what it takes to thrive as a hardware engineer at Cisco. Do your homework, practice responding confidently, and highlight the specialized skills you can bring to the role. With the right preparation, you can ace the interview and take the next step in building a successful career at Cisco.
Give the reasons why a Layered model is used by the Networking industry.
- It provides systematic troubleshooting in the network.
- It’s more about making it clear what tasks need to be done than how to do them.
- In a layered model, changes made to one layer don’t affect the other layers.
What is an auto keyword in C?
- The auto keyword is used to declare a variable with a fancy type. For instance, the auto keyword can be used to declare a variable whose initialization expression is made up of templates, pointers to members, or pointers to functions.
- It can also be used to declare a variable and set it to a lambda expression. You can’t declare the type of the variable yourself because only the compiler will know what kind of expression it is.
- Auto variables can only be used in the block or function where they were declared. They can’t be used anywhere else. When they are declared without being given a value, they are given a garbage value by default.
Syntax: auto
Example:
Here, x is a variable of storage class “auto” and with data type int.
