Taro Logo

Alienated from the start, right up to being laid off

Senior Software Engineer
Former Employee
Worked at Cisco for 1 year
September 3, 2019
San Jose, California
2.0
RecommendsNeutral OutlookNo CEO Opinion
Pros

Great company, solid structure. Genuinely appears to care about morals company-wide.

Cons

Employee onboarding is nonexistent. Employees are left to struggle to find out where any documentation is, to figure out how to access projects, files, or assistance with anything. Employees are left to tread water while a dozen weights are thrown on top of them. They cannot discard them as they are needed to keep the job, but they cannot use them because no one explains anything. I had to beg for tasks. Maybe I was lucky to get something where one supervisor and two leads had varying degrees of understanding of what the task was, as it was a one-line description. Each had their different expectations, none discussed. Trying to meet the needs, which varied greatly among them, leads you to getting nothing done due to running in circles and not meeting one person's requirements because the others conflicted.

Yup, while getting paid to run in circles and do nothing is fun. I felt utterly useless while I was there, which resulted in me getting laid off for lack of quality work, from lack of good supervision, lack of direction, and lack of scoping.

Advice to Management

Consolidate the scoping down to one person, provide details of the expectations, and actually help your employees when they are stuck rather than passing the buck until it's too late.

Was this helpful?

Cisco Interview Experiences