Scribd
Upload
11 views2 pages

Cisco Coding Interview Prep Guide

The document outlines key topics and problems to prepare for Cisco interviews, emphasizing the importance of dynamic programming (DP) and greedy algorithms. It provides a list of specific problems to practice, as well as miscellaneous concepts and data structures like Tries. Additionally, it includes a suggested daily breakdown for effective preparation over seven days.

Uploaded by

awaisahmed.mca24
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
11 views2 pages

Cisco Coding Interview Prep Guide

The document outlines key topics and problems to prepare for Cisco interviews, emphasizing the importance of dynamic programming (DP) and greedy algorithms. It provides a list of specific problems to practice, as well as miscellaneous concepts and data structures like Tries. Additionally, it includes a suggested daily breakdown for effective preparation over seven days.

Uploaded by

awaisahmed.mca24
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Important for Cisco MCQs & coding rounds:

✅ Find common elements in three sorted arrays


✅ Closest pair in sorted array / two sorted arrays
✅ Count 1’s in a sorted binary array (binary search variant)
✅ Sort array in wave form
✅ Search in almost sorted array (binary search with nearby swaps)

🧠 Dynamic Programming (DP) – The Real MVP


You gotta own this section—they love DP:
✅ 0-1 Knapsack
✅ Matrix Chain Multiplication
✅ Longest Common Subsequence / Substring
✅ Longest Palindromic Subsequence / Substring
✅ Coin Change Problem
✅ Edit Distance
✅ Egg Dropping Puzzle
✅ Partition Problem / Subset Sum
✅ Rod Cutting
✅ Min Cost Path
✅ Fibonacci (classic DP base)
✅ Count Binary Strings Without Consecutive Ones
✅ Ugly Numbers
✅ Longest Bitonic Subsequence
✅ Max Sum Increasing Subsequence
✅ Min Jumps to End
✅ Max Size Sub-matrix with all 1s
✅ Tiling Problem
✅ Ways to reach nth stair

⚡ Tip: Cisco cares more about “can you model the problem right?” than just code.

📊 Greedy Algorithms
If they skip DP, they ask greedy. Be ready with:

✅ Fractional Knapsack
✅ Activity Selection
✅ Job Sequencing
✅ Min Time to Finish All Jobs
✅ Maximize sum of abs differences
✅ Lexicographically smallest/largest array via swaps

🔡 Misc Concepts to Know Cold


✅ Tabulation vs Memoization (DP styles)
✅ Optimal Substructure & Overlapping Subproblems
✅ How to solve a DP Problem (core idea: break, relate, memoize)
✅ Count ways to reach a score
✅ Partition into two subarrays
✅ GCD + Array Operations

🧬 Trie Data Structure


✅ Basic structure + implementation
✅ Phone directory simulation (search prefix-wise)

🧩 INTERVIEW CONNECTIONS
Here’s how this maps to the Cisco Interview Round:

Topic Asked? Examples


Reverse Linked List ✅ Yes Must code on paper
Balanced Binary Tree ✅ Yes Theory + Code
Bitwise Macro ✅ Yes Set nth bit
Memory Alignment (Struct) ✅ Yes Static/global scope Qs
Sliding Window Protocol ✅ Yes Explain + draw
TCP/IP Differences ✅ Yes Simple but tricky wording

🧰 TL;DR – Your Prep Buckets (Do These)


Daily Breakdown Suggestion (7 Days)
Time Topic Type What to Do
1 hr C Programming + Bit Ops Macros, size tricks, pointers
1 hr Data Structures Trees, LL, Stacks, Queues
1 hr Searching/Sorting Binary variations + logic
1 hr DP + Greedy One new prob/day from list
1 hr MCQs + Revisions GFG quizzes, notes
1 hr Interview Prep Dry run Qs, explain aloud

You might also like