Infosys vs Cisco: Interview Question Comparison

When preparing for technical interviews, understanding company-specific patterns can dramatically increase your efficiency. Infosys and Cisco, while both major tech employers, have distinct focuses in their coding assessments. Infosys tends to cast a wider net with a larger volume of questions, whereas Cisco's interview is more concentrated on a core set of data structures and techniques. This comparison breaks down the key differences in volume, difficulty, and topic emphasis to help you prioritize your study.

Question Volume and Difficulty

The data shows a clear difference in the scale of preparation required.

Infosys presents a broader challenge with 158 total questions, distributed across Easy (42), Medium (82), and Hard (34) levels. The significant number of Medium and Hard problems indicates that Infosys interviews often test not just implementation but also the application of algorithms to more complex scenarios. You must be prepared for a wider variety of problems.

Cisco has a more focused question bank of 86 total questions, with a distribution of Easy (22), Medium (49), and Hard (15). The lower total volume and fewer Hard problems suggest Cisco's interviews might prioritize foundational understanding and clean problem-solving over tackling the most complex algorithmic edge cases. The emphasis is clearly on Medium-difficulty problems.

This means your preparation for Infosys should be more exhaustive, while for Cisco, you can aim for depth and mastery over a slightly narrower range.

Topic Overlap

Both companies heavily test Array and String manipulation, making these your absolute highest-priority topics. Mastery here is non-negotiable for either interview.

Beyond that, their paths diverge:

• Infosys places strong emphasis on Dynamic Programming (DP) and Math. DP questions require practice to recognize patterns like knapsack, longest common subsequence, or coin change. Math problems often involve number theory, combinatorics, or clever computational solutions.
• Cisco frequently uses Hash Table and Two Pointers techniques. These are often combined to solve problems involving searching, deduplication, or sliding windows efficiently. This points to an interview focused on practical data structure usage and optimizing time/space complexity for common scenarios.

Here is a typical problem that could appear at either company, solved with a Hash Table (relevant for Cisco) and with a focus on clean array/string manipulation (relevant for both):

def two_sum(nums, target):
    seen = {}
    for i, num in enumerate(nums):
        complement = target - num
        if complement in seen:
            return [seen[complement], i]
        seen[num] = i
    return []

# Example: two_sum([2, 7, 11, 15], 9) -> [0, 1]

Which to Prepare for First

Prepare for Infosys first. This strategy is counter-intuitive but effective. The broader and deeper Infosys question bank, with its significant DP and Math components, covers a superset of the skills needed for Cisco. If you can competently solve a wide range of Medium and some Hard problems for Infosys, you will have already mastered the core Array, String, and Hash Table techniques that Cisco emphasizes. You will then only need to adjust your focus slightly towards Two Pointers and refine your problem-solving speed for Cisco's style.

Preparing in the reverse order (Cisco first) leaves major gaps—particularly in Dynamic Programming—that you would then need to fill for Infosys, making your study path less efficient. Start with the more comprehensive challenge.

For targeted practice, visit the Infosys question list at /company/infosys and the Cisco question list at /company/cisco.