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Getting worse all the time

Engineer
Current Employee
Has worked at Cisco for less than 1 year
May 5, 2010
Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
1.0
Doesn't RecommendNo CEO Opinion
Pros
  • Flexible work hours
  • Allowed to take time off as necessary to handle personal matters
Cons
  • Very limited career advancement. If you're not willing to self-promote yourself year-round, then you can forget promotions or salary increases. Even if you do promote yourself year-round, you can still forget about a salary increase. Don't even mention stock options/RSUs; those are reserved mainly for execs.

  • Any perks that we used to have have mostly been eliminated. We still get free coffee and hot tea.

  • Health benefits are being cut back yearly, it seems.

  • US engineering jobs are being outsourced to China and India on an ongoing basis. Coupled with the lack of career advancement, this creates a huge morale problem.

  • Ridiculous work hours are expected. It used to be somewhat worth it to work long hours when there were stock options and salary increases. Now, I find myself and others working less and less after hours, and any overtime hours worked are mostly unrewarded. It's not uncommon to work day and night for several weeks and receive a $500 cap award if you're lucky. Sometimes, it's $0.

  • Middle management is horrible. Mostly a bunch of politicians only worried about protecting their kingdoms.

  • The end result of all of the above is that it is taking longer and longer for projects to get out the door, and the product quality is terrible.

Advice to Management

None. It's nothing they don't already know about and have done nothing about in the past.

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