Cadence Design Systems Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process
Real candidates share what happened, how many rounds they had,
and how the experience turned out.
Based on 243 interview experiences · FREE TO READ
Candidate interview experiences
First-hand accounts from people who interviewed at Cadence Design Systems.
Cadence Design Systems
Software Engineer
Entry Easy Negative experience No offer 2 rounds
Interview process
Recruiter call Take home Technical screen
Interview formats
Behavioral Coding Technical
The first step is a chat with HR, pretty standard, asking about daily life and career path, plus a little bit in English to check your fluency. They also send a programming project to do and submit for the next stage. The second stage is directly with the team, and they ask questions about the project you did. The HR person said in the first stage that there would only be questions about the code done and optimizations. However, the interviewers decided to ask to modify another piece of code that had nothing to do with the project done and it basically turned into a Live Coding interview (it wasn't just about optimizing the code, you had to know how to solve the proposed problem). Besides that, there was no time to think, the interviewer (one of the managers participating) pressured you to say what you were thinking every second (maybe to avoid cheating). But what was supposed to be an easy interview turned into a test of how to solve problems under pressure and under the judgment of at least 5 people watching your screen live. Basically, they didn't test your skills, ignored all optimization questions, and only tested if you could solve problems under pressure and intense scrutiny. My advice to you, if you want to avoid cheating, have an in-person interview and let the person solve any problem in a room, nobody is forced to try to think and write code while being pressured every second to say something. Also, the interview feedback was sent automatically by the recruitment platform in a generic way, without any word from HR.
Confirmed questions1 question
- Fix this code snippet with a new problem-solving approach while constantly verbalizing your thoughts, under the scrutiny of five people watching your every line, and with no time to reason.
Cadence Design Systems
Lead Software Engineer
Lead Average Positive experience Accept offer 6 rounds
Interview process
Recruiter call Technical screen Onsite
Interview formats
Behavioral Technical Coding System Design
I sent in my application online and a recruiter reached out pretty quickly for an initial chat. We went over my background, what I know technically, and if I'd be a good fit. The recruiter was good at communicating and clearly laid out what would happen next. They set up several interviews with the team super fast, all within a week. The recruiter kept me in the loop with updates and was really helpful when I had questions, making the whole thing feel pretty smooth and organized.
Confirmed questions4 questions
- Tell me about your experience with Qt C++.
- Can you describe your understanding of algorithms?
- How would you approach system design?
Cadence Design Systems
Software Engineer
Mid Average Positive experience Accept offer 2 rounds
Interview process
Technical screen Take home
Interview formats
Technical Coding
The interview process consists of two parts. First, an online interview lasting about 1.5 to 2 hours. Second, a written test that takes 1 to 1.5 hours. The written test covers topics like algorithms (including pseudo code and complexity analysis), debugging, and logic. The main programming language is C/C++. The entire process should wrap up in about 4 hours.
Confirmed questions4 questions
- Dynamic Programming, Binary Search Tree, and Linked List questions were asked.
- Questions related to Algorithms, Pseudo Code, and Complexity Analysis were included.
- A Debugging question was presented.
Cadence Design Systems Software Engineer Interview Questions
Quoted word for word from Cadence Design Systems interview reports.
“Given an array where indices are sheet sizes and values are the number of sheets, how many 'a0' sheets are formed?”
Read reports →“For a cube made of N x N x N small cubes, how many small cubes are on the surface?”
Read reports →“How would you read from one file and store its contents in sorted order into another file using Linux commands?”
Read reports →“Can you devise an algorithm to calculate the minimum knight moves between two squares on an MxN board and analyze its complexity?”
Read reports →“Suppose we're given several starting and ending points on a graph. What's the longest path to reach each endpoint?”
Read report →“What are the disadvantages when using a vector to handle inserting a series of numbers, if that series is more than 5 million?”
Read report →“Can you implement a reentrant function that reads a specified number of bytes from a FILE* object using a buffer?”
Read report →“How would you determine the smallest polygon that encloses all given random points in the first quadrant of an x-y plane?”
Read report →“Create a complete binary search tree using 10 elements of your choice, and then write its inorder and preorder traversals.”
Read report →Formats, difficulty and experience
Across all 243 Cadence Design Systems interview reports.