Cisco

If someone wants to move to a people manager role, Cisco India is the best place to be. People managers are designated as Engineering Managers, but their technical capabilities are pathetic. You just need one skill: micromanagement. Have your numbers updated before higher management.

Beyond 10 years of experience, you will murder your technical career growth. There is now cutting-edge technical work moving to India.

CISCO India: Less than 0.5% have any meaningful growth. These are the chosen ones by VP/Director, who are given RSUs more often. RSU distribution is always done in closed doors and is opaque. You will not even know if a quarter has a budget for that. Very few coming from external hires make a mark.

Worst thing is you will end up reporting to your buddy/colleague, or maybe a junior who chose to be a people manager rather than being in technical (not even having management degrees). No matter, the person could have a technical background, be even 50% of your capabilities, but they are well-oiled in the system.

Salaries for pure technical individual contributors can be compared by service companies once you complete 5 years of normalization.

Don't make Cisco India run as sweatshops run by incompetent people managers. Some of them even lack the capabilities to assess a problem and its complexity.