Cisco vs NVIDIA Interview Questions
Cisco lists 87 LeetCode interview questions while NVIDIA lists 136. They share 40 problems — 46% of Cisco's bank and 29% of NVIDIA's. Focus on the overlap first, then drill into 47 Cisco-only and 96 NVIDIA-only questions.
Overview
Preparation Strategy
Step 1 — Shared core: Solve the 40 overlapping problems first. These are the highest-yield questions for candidates interviewing at both Cisco and NVIDIA.
Step 2 — Company-specific depth: Add Cisco-specific problems like Predict the Winner, Lucky Numbers in a Matrix, Snakes and Ladders and NVIDIA-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
40 Shared Questions
High-priority problems to practice for both Cisco and NVIDIA.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Longest Palindromic Substring | Medium |
| House Robber | Medium |
| Rotate Image | Medium |
| Spiral Matrix | Medium |
| Fizz Buzz | Easy |
| LRU Cache | Medium |
| Merge Intervals | Medium |
| Maximum Subarray | Medium |
| Max Points on a Line | Hard |
| Two Sum | Easy |
| Valid Parentheses | Easy |
| Trapping Rain Water | Hard |
| Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters | Medium |
| Linked List Cycle | Easy |
| Merge Sorted Array | Easy |
| Decode String | Medium |
| Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock | Easy |
| Number of Islands | Medium |
| Move Zeroes | Easy |
| Reverse Linked List | Easy |
| 3Sum | Medium |
| Longest Consecutive Sequence | Medium |
| Add Two Numbers | Medium |
| Group Anagrams | Medium |
| Top K Frequent Elements | Medium |
| Insert Delete GetRandom O(1) | Medium |
| Merge k Sorted Lists | Hard |
| Jump Game | Medium |
| Unique Paths | Medium |
| Restore IP Addresses | Medium |
Showing top 30 of 40 shared problems.
Unique to Cisco (47)
Problems in Cisco's list that do not appear at NVIDIA.
Unique to NVIDIA (96)
Problems in NVIDIA's list that do not appear at Cisco.
| Problem | Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Special Binary String | Hard |
| Minimum Operations to Reduce an Integer to 0 | Medium |
| Last Stone Weight | Easy |
| Maximize Greatness of an Array | Medium |
| Maximum Number of Visible Points | Hard |
| Search in Rotated Sorted Array | Medium |
| Reverse Bits | Easy |
| Dot Product of Two Sparse Vectors | Medium |
| Task Scheduler II | Medium |
| Find the Duplicate Number | Medium |
| Rotate List | Medium |
| Container With Most Water | Medium |
Frequently Asked Questions
How many LeetCode questions do Cisco and NVIDIA share?
Cisco and NVIDIA share 40 LeetCode interview questions. 47 problems appear only in Cisco's list and 96 appear only in NVIDIA's list.
What topics overlap most between Cisco and NVIDIA?
The most common shared topics between Cisco and NVIDIA are Array (18 shared questions), Hash Table (9 shared questions), String (7 shared questions), Dynamic Programming (7 shared questions), Two Pointers (6 shared questions). Mastering these areas prepares you for both companies.
Which company asks harder LeetCode questions: Cisco or NVIDIA?
Cisco has 24 Easy, 50 Medium, and 13 Hard questions. NVIDIA has 32 Easy, 89 Medium, and 15 Hard questions. Cisco has a higher proportion of Hard problems in its interview set.
How should I prepare if interviewing at both Cisco and NVIDIA?
Start with the 40 shared problems since they cover what both companies ask most often. Then add 20 Cisco-specific and 20 NVIDIA-specific questions to round out your prep.