Cisco

I spent over a decade at this company and here are my thoughts.

• It used to be a great company.

• It used to have great compensation.

• You used to be appreciated.

• You used to be empowered.

• If you are wanting a divorce or more time away from home, then this place is for you.

• If you are upper management, then you still have great pay and bonuses.

If you still decide to come to work for Cisco, then be sure that you negotiate a great salary prior to starting. This will be it for at least a decade.

They brag on how they value a balance of personal and work. But if you are an engineer, then this does not apply.

• Pay freeze since 2001
• Merit increase freeze
• Bonuses are a fraction of what they once were and shrinking every year
• Benefits are shrinking

Advancement is non-existent.

Training on new products is a joke.

Taking personal time off is frowned on. Management thinks that if you are an engineer, you should not have a personal life nor want to be home when you are sick.

What, you need sleep too?

Imagine, if you can, taking a simple situation and then having management put the most convoluted, backward processes on it so that it hampers any progress and makes your job harder by a thousandfold. Then, when the project takes too long or just fails, it cannot be their fault (even though they have you doing the work of three engineers). Nope, it has to be you did not prioritize it right.

What, you want to get 4 hours of sleep?

Wake up and smell the coffee. You are losing all your technical talent by believing your own rhetoric. You have Sr. managers that tell you exactly what you want to hear and do not let facts stand in the way. You let all the "outside talent" come in and demoralize and strip Cisco of its culture, motivation, and innovation, as these folks attempt to recreate the environments that they left.