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Good place for a day job; forget about career growth. Doomed

Software Engineer IV
Current Employee
Has worked at Cisco for less than 1 year
October 9, 2011
Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
4.0
No CEO Opinion
Pros

Very competent workforce.

Benefits are ok, salaries are low, but when bonus is added, then it is close to the industry average.

Work-life balance is preached about, but seldom practiced. It depends on the BU/team you are a part of.

You can anonymously interview with other teams when you are ready to move. But never trust any of the internal career websites, since clicking buttons can rock the boat by a tip-off to the present reporting chain.

There is $30 billion cash, but they cut employee amenities like free soda, etc.

Good employees are continuing to leave.

Cons

Benefits are okay; salaries are low, but when a bonus is added, it is close to the industry average.

There is absolutely ZERO career progression opportunity if you are located outside of San Jose. Cisco does a good job of lip service about promoting other sites, but the executives are total snobs. They want all their reports to be local in SJ, regardless of costs and attrition rates.

Poor performing execs get promoted and moved up. When your run rate is over $1B, why rock the boat with new R&D and increasing your bottom line? The status quo is great. Brown-nosing works well.

Many managers and directors are jerks and should not have been put in leadership roles to begin with. Now, the senior execs are flattening the organization, meaning absolutely no career path if one plans to move from, say, engineering to management.

Advice to Management

Take risks.

Don't bring in consulting firms when you have managers hired for the same jobs. Why are they all here?

Offer employees a career path. The performance reviews are a sham.

Internal movement should be made relatively easy, but the job descriptions are so tight that not even internal candidates will qualify. Maybe these are "green card" job postings.

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