interviewing at cisco for a data engineering role in about 3 weeks. the reports i'm finding are 2-3 years old and I honestly can't tell if the process has changed.
anyone gone through a loop recently, especially on the data/analytics engineering side? specifically curious about: is it still HackerRank first? are they doing system design or more SQL/pipeline design? behavioral weight vs. technical weight?
also open to hearing about any SWE or infra loops if that's what you have. round structure and vibe is useful even if the domain is different.
4 replies
ds_dmitri
not data eng but data science, went through the loop 6 weeks ago. yes still HackerRank to screen. mine was SQL-heavy in the tech rounds, not LeetCode-style. they asked a lot about pipeline reliability and how I'd handle late-arriving data. behavioral was definitely weighted, probably 40% of the overall feel.
de_derek
this is super useful, thank you. late-arriving data handling is a real question in data eng too. good to know they're asking practical stuff.
staff_steph
swe loop here, different domain. system design round exists and they do go deep. for infra-adjacent roles they'll probably care about your opinions on streaming vs batch tradeoffs more than generic 'design a URL shortener' stuff.
qa_quinn
went through a QA / SDET loop at cisco about 2 months ago. process was: HackerRank (Python, 60 min), tech phone screen (debugging exercise, not coding from scratch), then panel with 4 people. behavioral was serious. they asked 3 separate behavioral Qs in the panel not counting the manager round.