Software Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at Cognizant with 2.7 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 69% positive. To compare, the company-average is 69.4% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Software Engineer roles take an average of 9 days to get hired, when considering 267 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Cognizant overall takes an average of 17 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Cognizant as a Software Engineer according to 267 Glassdoor interviews include:
One on one interview: 25%
Skills test: 18%
Phone interview: 12%
Background check: 12%
Personality test: 8%
Presentation: 8%
IQ intelligence test: 7%
Group panel interview: 7%
Drug test: 2%
Other: 2%
Here are the most commonly searched roles for interview reports -
I applied through a staffing agency. The process took 3 days. I interviewed at Cognizant (Pune) in Feb 2018
Interview
I applied for CTS. This process tooks 3 days.
1. Technical Round (They will ask and test your skills wihch you mentioned in your profile and some tricky programmatic questions, algorithms)
2. Managerial Round (Here they will ask questions about your roles and responsibilities in projects)
3. HR (Mostly this will be not going to conducted in the same day. They will call you after one day if you selected in both the above 2 rounds, ).
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
1. Core Java Thread based questions
2. Collections
3. Java 8 concepts (only theoretical)
4. Spring, hibernate related questions
5. Tricky Programmatic questions on Pascal Triangle, Transpose of Matrix, Explanation of time complexity in various algorithms.
Great interview experience. The interviewers were friendly, professional, and supportive. Whenever I couldn't answer a question, they patiently explained the expected approach and concepts, making the discussion comfortable, informative, and encouraging throughout.
I applied online. I interviewed at Cognizant (Chennai) in Jun 2026
Interview
only one round of technical interview for senior position, and hr execution was not proper, they didn;t connect when needed and no proper negotiation of salary either since shortlisting for interview
The interview was primarily technical, concentrating on C#, .NET, SQL, and API concepts. Questions tested understanding of core principles and practical application. The process was straightforward, professional, and focused on technical depth.