Pros: Very relaxed. Great work-life balance. Friendly people to work with.

Cons: Constant layoffs. Politics. Engineering office space leaves a lot to be desired.

Pros: There are a lot of business units in Cisco with a lot of projects. It's possible to move around to find a team and project that suits one the best. Recently, there is a lot of talk about AI, and some teams are using it; others are exploring options. Benefits are good: * Four weeks of vacation * Accrued PTO (not "unlimited" like in many companies) * 4.5% match on 401K contributions * Bonus * Better health insurance than many companies * ESPP – you can save up to 10% of salary to buy stock with at least a 15% discount. Cisco gives the lowest price for the last two years (on ESPP buy dates) minus 15%, which is nice. In most teams, work/life balance is good. It's possible to work on really big projects and products that most startups can't handle.

Cons: It's a huge company, so there is more "paperwork" than in startups, reporting hours spent, creating and closing user stories and tickets. Also, there are slackers. For a long time, those people can get by with doing almost nothing just because they are friends with their manager. Cisco has quarterly layoffs, usually small. Once a year, in September to November, there's a big one. Regardless of how much you contribute, you may be let go just because the business unit is not as profitable as some others.

Pros: work/life balance, can do as much or as little.

Cons: Can be bureaucratic and slow.