Cisco

Cisco pays well, with bonuses for performance, unless you really knock it out of the park, and makes an effort to manage its employees effectively.

Cisco is confronting a new and rapidly evolving business as they try to transform to a software-driven business. Employees with those skills are going to find Cisco a great short-term opportunity. Then the politics step in.

Most of your managers will turn over in a year or two. It takes longer for the least competent to be replaced, however.

The world is becoming software. Cisco is hugely dependent on software, but its business models emphasize hardware. Consequently, its ability to execute at the rapid pace of the software world is challenged. This hurts your ability to fully maximize sales programs and leaves technical people in a support quagmire.

Cisco is not a place for the long term. During my tenure, my entire office of "Gray Lizards" – people with decades of experience, customer relationships, and technical knowledge of the quirks of older systems and how to keep them going – was riffed. We received a 42-page memo showing that, in addition to those of us over 50, they had also removed several people who were 30, thus indicating no ageism existed in their decisions. While hard to accept, I do appreciate that times are changing for Cisco and they need to change with them.

Mid-level "faces" of the company change annually, indicating that priorities and investments are changing as well. This does not bode well for longer-term employment stability after 2-3 years, especially if you are a project manager.

As with any company, politics is rife the higher you go. But at Cisco, the impact of politics is felt at operational levels in terms of investments, timelines, rewards, and constraints. Duplicity is very common around projects that once held great promise but now have new people with new priorities in place.