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William Swansen has worked in the employment assistance realm since 2007. He is an author, job search strategist, and career advisor who helps individuals worldwide and in various professions to find their ideal careers.
It is easy for senior hardware engineers to become enamored with their designs and ignore other criteria their organizations use to evaluate the viability of a piece of hardware. The Cisco interviewer will ask this question to make sure you do not fall into this category and understand that good hardware designs are evaluated on a wide range of criteria, not only their functionality and performance.

William Swansen has worked in the employment assistance realm since 2007. He is an author, job search strategist, and career advisor who helps individuals worldwide and in various professions to find their ideal careers.
"While my primary design criteria when working on a piece of new hardware are performance and functionality, I recognize that Cisco will use other criteria to evaluate my design and determine if the hardware will be manufactured. I keep these in mind when going through the process of designing a new piece of equipment. Some of these include manufacturability, user interface, reliability, repairability, support requirements, cost, and the time required to develop, test, and manufacturer the hardware."

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Written by William Swansen
30 Questions & Answers • Cisco

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