Cisco

Cisco really looks after its employees.

Benefits are great - ESPP, bonuses, PTO. (We had the same number of vacation days as we had before Cisco bought us, so I can't actually tell).

Opportunities to change career paths - both to relocate and to change business units - Cisco allows it.

Community involvement - employees get 5 days a year to volunteer at an NGO of their choice, plus a matching program. And there's more.

A lot of professional courses, both technical, management, human-interaction skills, and management. Cisco invites excellent tutors to educate its employees on many subjects; you just need to ask your manager for approval.

I took technical courses mainly, such as MongoDB, Postgres, Extreme Java development, ElasticSearch, etc. For all of them, I can say I've learned a lot and enjoyed it.

Work-life balance is good.

Even in times of crisis, we were not as stressed as we were before Cisco bought us.

One reason is the demand made by Cisco to its departments to define reasonable, deliverable goals.

Even getting fired by Cisco is pleasant.

I was fired as part of a mass layoff - the compensation package is very generous, and they even provide professional help on getting a new job.

To me, that says a lot.

Plus,

Everyone I've met at Cisco was super nice and professional.

Also,

Once my manager approved, Cisco had no problem allowing me to work part-time, on fair conditions. That meant a lot to me.

Big companies mean big bureaucracies.

Some of their processes are very cumbersome and frustrating, like getting a refund for something you bought for work.

There are so many layers of management and departments; you don't really get to know most of what the company is doing. Even though they try to get employees connected and involved, it's a challenge.

In my team, we used to have 'innovation days' – one day every few months where workers were free to work on a POC of their choice.

I really loved it.

Encourage that.