I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Cisco (San Jose, CA) in Dec 2011
Interview
The inteview was hard and detailed. I had 9 interviews in a day and they covered the details of all the work I had done previously. It was a tiring and a pleasant experience at the same time.
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.