Amazon vs Cisco Interview Questions
Amazon lists 1,968 LeetCode interview questions while Cisco lists 87. They share 80 problems — 4% of Amazon's bank and 92% of Cisco's. Focus on the overlap first, then drill into 1,888 Amazon-only and 7 Cisco-only questions.
Overview
Preparation Strategy
Step 1 — Shared core: Solve the 80 overlapping problems first. These are the highest-yield questions for candidates interviewing at both Amazon and Cisco.
Step 2 — Company-specific depth: Add Amazon-specific problems like Reorganize String, Container With Most Water, Median of Two Sorted Arrays and Cisco-specific problems from the exclusive lists below.
Step 3 — Difficulty tuning: Amazon skews harder in our data. Budget extra time for Hard problems if you are targeting that company.
Difficulty Comparison
Top Shared Topics
80 Shared Questions
High-priority problems to practice for both Amazon and Cisco.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Two Sum | Easy |
| LRU Cache | Medium |
| Trapping Rain Water | Hard |
| Number of Islands | Medium |
| Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters | Medium |
| Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock | Easy |
| Group Anagrams | Medium |
| Add Two Numbers | Medium |
| 3Sum | Medium |
| Longest Palindromic Substring | Medium |
| Merge Intervals | Medium |
| Valid Parentheses | Easy |
| Merge k Sorted Lists | Hard |
| Subarray Sum Equals K | Medium |
| Merge Sorted Array | Easy |
| Top K Frequent Elements | Medium |
| Maximum Subarray | Medium |
| Longest Consecutive Sequence | Medium |
| Product of Array Except Self | Medium |
| Jump Game | Medium |
| Climbing Stairs | Easy |
| House Robber | Medium |
| Letter Combinations of a Phone Number | Medium |
| Word Search | Medium |
| Sliding Window Maximum | Hard |
| Spiral Matrix | Medium |
| Rotate Image | Medium |
| Remove Duplicates from Sorted Array | Easy |
| Meeting Rooms II | Medium |
| Unique Paths | Medium |
Showing top 30 of 80 shared problems.
Unique to Amazon (1,888)
Problems in Amazon's list that do not appear at Cisco.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Reorganize String | Medium |
| Container With Most Water | Medium |
| Median of Two Sorted Arrays | Hard |
| Koko Eating Bananas | Medium |
| Course Schedule | Medium |
| Longest Common Prefix | Easy |
| Rotting Oranges | Medium |
| Search in Rotated Sorted Array | Medium |
| Copy List with Random Pointer | Medium |
| Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Tree | Medium |
| Generate Parentheses | Medium |
| Palindrome Number | Easy |
Unique to Cisco (7)
Problems in Cisco's list that do not appear at Amazon.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Number of Valid Words in a Sentence | Easy |
| Find Third Transaction | Medium |
| Find the Largest Area of Square Inside Two Rectangles | Medium |
| Sum of k-Mirror Numbers | Hard |
| Number of Equal Count Substrings | Medium |
| Expressive Words | Medium |
| Count of Integers | Hard |
Frequently Asked Questions
How many LeetCode questions do Amazon and Cisco share?
Amazon and Cisco share 80 LeetCode interview questions. 1888 problems appear only in Amazon's list and 7 appear only in Cisco's list.
What topics overlap most between Amazon and Cisco?
The most common shared topics between Amazon and Cisco are Array (21 shared questions), Hash Table (8 shared questions), Dynamic Programming (8 shared questions), Two Pointers (6 shared questions), String (6 shared questions). Mastering these areas prepares you for both companies.
Which company asks harder LeetCode questions: Amazon or Cisco?
Amazon has 527 Easy, 1074 Medium, and 367 Hard questions. Cisco has 24 Easy, 50 Medium, and 13 Hard questions. Amazon has a higher proportion of Hard problems in its interview set.
How should I prepare if interviewing at both Amazon and Cisco?
Start with the 80 shared problems since they cover what both companies ask most often. Then add 20 Amazon-specific and 7 Cisco-specific questions to round out your prep.