Pretty good for a big company, despite the repeated layoffs
Pretty good for a big company, despite the repeated layoffs
Cisco has excellent benefits for regular employees, including all the health, vision, dental, 401k, ESPP, family bonding leave, and other benefits that are part of big company compensation in Silicon Valley.
Cisco has a good internal training and learning site that gives you access to many resources for improving your knowledge.
The culture is modern and socially liberal; embracing diversity is encouraged. And, if you are laid off, the severance package is generous.
I was part of an acquisition at Cisco. While it was handled well, and the transition went pretty smoothly, after a few years Cisco gutted our business in one of its perennial layoffs. It was a disappointment, since we were making money and doing well compared to other acquisitions.
You cannot allow yourself to forget that Cisco is a big company, and if you are not working on something that's making a great deal of money there, Cisco is not likely to understand your business well enough to grow it.
Take care when acquiring companies to preserve these teams that work so well together.
The connections these people have forged with each other provide for improved productivity.
Don't put obstacles in their way or blow the teams apart.
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Cisco Interview Questions
Cisco Interview Experiences
Manager, Software Development
No clear process was followed. Multiple rounds of interviews and slow decision-making occurred. HR was horrible in handling the process of making an offer. There was no clear communication about when the next steps would happen or what they would be
Quality Assurance
It was fairly good and well organized. The team was very friendly and interactive. The interview process was smooth and finished the process in a week.
ML/AI Engineer
It was a one-round interview. It was predominantly on data science and large language models. They gave me a repo of an agent framework and asked me to find the code where reward is calculated.
Manager, Software Development
IndiaDecember 18, 2014No clear process was followed. Multiple rounds of interviews and slow decision-making occurred. HR was horrible in handling the process of making an offer. There was no clear communication about when the next steps would happen or what they would be
Quality Assurance
San Jose, California, United StatesNovember 14, 2025It was fairly good and well organized. The team was very friendly and interactive. The interview process was smooth and finished the process in a week.
ML/AI Engineer
San Jose, California, United StatesOctober 24, 2025It was a one-round interview. It was predominantly on data science and large language models. They gave me a repo of an agent framework and asked me to find the code where reward is calculated.
