American Express vs Cisco Interview Questions
American Express lists 23 LeetCode interview questions while Cisco lists 87. They share 5 problems — 22% of American Express's bank and 6% of Cisco's. Focus on the overlap first, then drill into 18 American Express-only and 82 Cisco-only questions.
Overview
Preparation Strategy
Step 1 — Shared core: Solve the 5 overlapping problems first. These are the highest-yield questions for candidates interviewing at both American Express and Cisco.
Step 2 — Company-specific depth: Add American Express-specific problems like Minimum Deletions to Make Character Frequencies Unique, Maximum Equal Frequency, Divide an Array Into Subarrays With Minimum Cost II and Cisco-specific problems from the exclusive lists below.
Step 3 — Difficulty tuning: Cisco skews harder in our data. Budget extra time for Hard problems if you are targeting that company.
Difficulty Comparison
Top Shared Topics
5 Shared Questions
High-priority problems to practice for both American Express and Cisco.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Two Sum | Easy |
| Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters | Medium |
| Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock | Easy |
| 3Sum | Medium |
| Permutations | Medium |
Unique to American Express (18)
Problems in American Express's list that do not appear at Cisco.
Unique to Cisco (82)
Problems in Cisco's list that do not appear at American Express.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Longest Palindromic Substring | Medium |
| House Robber | Medium |
| Predict the Winner | Medium |
| Lucky Numbers in a Matrix | Easy |
| Rotate Image | Medium |
| Spiral Matrix | Medium |
| Fizz Buzz | Easy |
| LRU Cache | Medium |
| Snakes and Ladders | Medium |
| Number of Valid Words in a Sentence | Easy |
| Maximum Difference Between Increasing Elements | Easy |
| Merge Intervals | Medium |
Frequently Asked Questions
How many LeetCode questions do American Express and Cisco share?
American Express and Cisco share 5 LeetCode interview questions. 18 problems appear only in American Express's list and 82 appear only in Cisco's list.
What topics overlap most between American Express and Cisco?
The most common shared topics between American Express and Cisco are Array (4 shared questions), Hash Table (2 shared questions), String (1 shared questions), Sliding Window (1 shared questions), Dynamic Programming (1 shared questions). Mastering these areas prepares you for both companies.
Which company asks harder LeetCode questions: American Express or Cisco?
American Express has 8 Easy, 12 Medium, and 3 Hard questions. Cisco has 24 Easy, 50 Medium, and 13 Hard questions. Cisco has a higher proportion of Hard problems in its interview set.
How should I prepare if interviewing at both American Express and Cisco?
Start with the 5 shared problems since they cover what both companies ask most often. Then add 18 American Express-specific and 20 Cisco-specific questions to round out your prep.