Cisco is fairly friendly to working from home. I do so at least once a week; we have quite a few full-time remote workers.
While changing any large company is like turning a big ship, Cisco seems more nimble than most. I've worked at one other very large IT company, and Cisco is more nimble than that one, and generally a nicer place to work.
Cisco really tries to be a great place to work. It doesn't always succeed at that, but is never worse than decent. Work/life balance is pretty good.
I hear horror stories from people about the lack of that; I don't hear those at Cisco.
Bad coffee, infrequent raises, middle-of-the-road salary and benefits, and we've had a lot of rounds of layoffs in the last 5 years or so.
Pay more, obviously. I've been with Cisco quite a while now, and my salary has not kept pace with inflation over that time (I checked). If I were not a good employee, I would be understanding of that, but my performance has never been rated less than Strong, and is often higher. I'd love to know what it feels like to get annual merit raises. I don't, and AFAIK I don't know anyone who does.
OK, it's true that I (probably) won't quit if you don't. I'm at a point in my career where I would prefer to finish it out at Cisco and retire in 15 years. OTOH, if I changed employers (which wouldn't be hard; I fend off recruiters pretty regularly, and have two good friends at Google), I could retire in 10 based on the salary bump I'd get out of it.
The recruiter called to check basics. I had one phone screen for 30 minutes, followed by an on-site interview with six team members. There were no hard questions compared to expectations. Only one engineer asked a question on linked lists. They seeme
It was very similar to any other big company.
- 6 rounds including an interview by the director. - Interview styles changed with individuals. - The interview included both conceptual questions and coding. The first phone interview required coding on a shared screen.
The recruiter called to check basics. I had one phone screen for 30 minutes, followed by an on-site interview with six team members. There were no hard questions compared to expectations. Only one engineer asked a question on linked lists. They seeme
It was very similar to any other big company.
- 6 rounds including an interview by the director. - Interview styles changed with individuals. - The interview included both conceptual questions and coding. The first phone interview required coding on a shared screen.