Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

@1Oevt so you want a cookie?

In 2018 in Cisco, As team lead, after I just hired several H1-B contractors, I got laid off. I was 61. I think they don't like old employees. fortunately, I found a good job next month.

I agree with the other poster that Cisco would currently be trading in the single digits had it not been for Huawei's problems. The equipment is overpriced and c-ap, Cisco expects the customer to pay for their software problems, and the attitude of the sales force is far too pompous. My advise to all is to go with Arista, Juniper or heck even Huawei equipment. Their stuff works most of the time and customer support wants to fix the problems rather than Cisco's that wants money when their equipment fails to perform.

I worked at Cisco for close to 7 years in various departments in San Jose. There were layoffs just about every year. I had worked with teams that came in through acquisitions and was told the product was unlikely to stop being sold. This was a lie and a number of the employees that came in through acquisitions were let go. I quit last year because my manager was a crazy micromanager who seemed to think I can read his mind about exactly what he wants and then he was always asking why certain things weren't done when no one had said they needed to be done. Almost everyone I worked with was H1B or from Infosys or TCS. Cisco is really one of the sh–tiest places to work if you want to feel like you're stuck in India and many of the company events are Indian themed. If you're not Indian, you're less likely to be promoted. People will speak Hindi all around you even though you don't understand, and they don't seem to think they are being rude.

Some of the recent VP new hires at Cisco are world class incompetent jerks. They will pull down Cisco's best place to work ranking in no time.

Nah. Cisco paid good money for that fake "Best Workplace" award.

An entire sw team in Richardson was laid off last week.

The layoffs are ONLY about hitting a number and nothing more - not this realignment of resources BS. I was hit in late 2014 as part of an 8% company wide LR, I was a top ranked Sr Manager. Prior to that I laid off staff every year to hit the number of the day. In some cases I laid off recently hired 4.0 GPA new hires. I am a different person since leaving that dog eat dog and highly demographically skewed company. Internally it was often like the game of survivor / hunger games. There were always people in SJ headquarters trying to take me and my team out or put us in a bad light so they could take over our work. Many Directors and VP's lied to my face, often. I still talk to some former coworkers who are still there and say it is even worse than when i was there. I do not envy them one bit. My kids live in the bay area and my daughter once talked about applying for a job at Cisco. I strongly recommended against it.

Cisco is a has been company. So much unhealthy politics. The escalation management team and its VP are the worst!

SP BU, Our Italy team are been told to let go two months ago

CISCO has the 55+ workers by the balls. Sign the LR waver of rights or lose the package. This is an age discrimination suit teed up for brave fool who dares to challenge them.

The Security Business Group (SBG) was impacted today... I see over 1100 listed on the paperwork that I received.

Was informed by someone who has broad scope of this that LRs this month will total over 14,000+.

Friend that works for Cisco through Broadsoft acquisition was let go this morning along with a ton of others.

I wont only chime in on if they will happen they already have. I was laid off this week on wednesday in the rtp campus and I heard many others have been as well.

Other than the 8 execs let go as mentioned in the earlier posts does anyone know how many other management pukes have been let go.

If you know of a BU impacted by layoffs now, please speak up.

Some of the recent VP new hires at Cisco are world class incompetent jerks. They will pull down Cisco's best place to work ranking in no time.

yeah, it really helps to have to tell the customer that they have to wait 6 weeks for onsite support while the freshly painted TME gets a visa.

Well, India based PMs or TMEs are all freshers and paid well below the market rate. Cisco can get 4 PMs or TMEs in India for the cost of a single PM or TME in the US.

Well, my BU is regularly adding PM’s and TME’s in India. They seem to be giving them all new roles, like for products that barely exist, or for stuff that never needEd PM or TME before. It’s certainly not helping out the people working like dogs on the mainline stuff. But I’m very sure that the axe is going to fall on the US based TME’s and PM’s, so it will basically shift those jobs to India.

Previous post stated that Cisco is hiring. Perhaps true but almost all Desi heads and H1Bs. This pattern of replacing Americans just continues though there are very very few left. Maybe this layoff will finish off the few non-Desi staff left. There are very very few.

I don't think that Cisco has a huge layoff because my department is hiring many H1-visa engineers recently as well as we are offering positions to many fresh grads. There are still many openings in the company. I guess that the layoff is mainly on the departments which are building legacy or commodity products. Cisco is moving toward software and service company, cleanup those legacy groups is necessary.

@1siia+1255awgi I’ve heard much bigger numbers than 3,000 - 3x that in fact. I’m just doing the basic math, because the more information source you have, the better predictions you can make and prepare for.

Old cows on medication are too expensive for Cisco to maintain. I heard FB has no employee on meds.

@1ruol+1255awgi It's going to be waaay above your 3000 calculation. You're obviously not keyed in to a Sr. Exec that knows the real story.

Some of the people obsessed with layoffs are above 55 and know Cisco doesn’t like older workers.

$150m is about enough to lay off 3,000 of us, or about 50 VP’s.

Cisco equipment - Made for the US masses by the asses. The layoffs are needed unfortunately for the company to survive. This c-ap company has over 2500 VPs and above to manage a 70000 workforce. Go figure. Firing the 7 VPs is a good start but a lot more of these farts need to be trimmed. Too bad the engineers will feel the brunt for the actions of the farts above them.

The majority of people who are obsessed with Layoffs are people who don't want to put in the effort to develop themselves and get out of this sh– hole.

Cisco can always increase the restructuring costs and claim those costs in Q3 earnings report. Don't assume the $150 million they mentioned in at bottom of the Q2 report is the only charge. As they say, things change. They already provided guidance for Q3 revenue of -1.5% to -3.5%.

Layoff percentage will be in the double digits next week.

Well, I’m hearing all sorts of rumors, but biblical doesn’t gel with the $150m this quarter. To me, that says about 3,000 this quarter at most, assuming most people get about $50K (including all the other costs, like outplacement, etc).

USA Layoff is happening next week after President's Day (lists already formed) and it's going to BIBLICAL!

Worse than any layoff from the past.

Good luck to all. If you get hit, understand that in a "lemons to lemonade" way, it's the best thing that could of happened to you as you'll increase your total comp by a BIG margin at your next gig!

God Bless!

You won't believe that there are so many Principal Engineers in Cisco cannot code and don't understand many basic things on system design. However, they do know how to talk about technology in the extremely high level. Those PE is more like a program manager or marketing people than real technical staff. No wonder Cisco cannot build things, it has to buy. If you need a talking head, hire Cisco PE. Otherwise, you won't able to get any decent things delivered. I don't understand why Cisco promote many talking head as PE. Shame on Cisco.

"@1phyw+1255awgi, so true... I don't even bother interviewing cisco employees. can't believe how stupid some of these people are. oh we'll..."

Yes...but I suspect you don't get many applying to work alongside you at KFC

Most of the Cisco engineers interviewing with our company are total c-ap. They can't answer simple questions about iptables and they are supposed to be the pioneers of networking. Please folks these days no one cares about what you are doing or did at Cisco. Understood the basics of distributed computing, learn or brush up on basic coding skills ( leetcode is considered the gold standard ). Don't come clueless to our interviews. For now we are not interviewing any more Cisco rejects. Good luck finding a job.

While CSCO is a networking company, we also make Internet phone and video conferencing products, servers and several software products. Why would an Engineer working on one of those products need to know simple stuff about iptables?

It's ironic that you complain about Cisco engineers not knowing about a UNIX/Linux system admin command for routing networking traffic on a *nix server, but then recommend that they brush up on basic coding skills. Which skill do you want? Sys Admin networking skills or basic coding skills?

I know what I'd want...current skills for the type of engineering work I'm hiring them to do. Do I need to understand networking at a UNIX level to write code for a Windows client for Jabber or WebEx Teams? Probably not.

You sound like half the recruiters who contact me about call manager roles or network engineer roles just because I have Cisco on my resume, but I'm a simple IT Sys Admin who knows just enough networking stuff to get my servers on the network and trouble shoot issues. And, yes, I am familiar with iptables.

The only thing you said of value was "Don't come clueless to our interviews." And that applies to any company. If you want a job, any candidate should not go clueless to any interview at any company.

It’s happening in Feb 26.

It's 8%

@1phyw+1255awgi, so true... I don't even bother interviewing cisco employees. can't believe how stupid some of these people are. oh we'll...

Most of the Cisco engineers interviewing with our company are total c-ap. They can't answer simple questions about iptables and they are supposed to be the pioneers of networking. Please folks these days no one cares about what you are doing or did at Cisco. Understood the basics of distributed computing, learn or brush up on basic coding skills ( leetcode is considered the gold standard ). Don't come clueless to our interviews. For now we are not interviewing any more Cisco rejects. Good luck finding a job.