I'm impacted. And am on the fence about trying to stay or go. I have a lot of great colleagues who are busting over backwards to find a place for me to stay in Cisco. I love them, but I've got to ask if it is worth it. Honestly, I don't have an axe to grind, it's just business.
My question to y'all: Do you have a list of companies that grab-up Cisconians, knowing that they are good catches?
FWIW: I'm in product management.
I get a lot of calls about jobs but I have IoT and mobile app experience from prior SP company. I started looking as soon as news broke of layoffs. Git an offer the weekend before getting laid off. Now I get full 6 month lump sum salary. Yay. But I am very prepared and applied to a lot of relevant product mktg jobs. Palo Alto networks like Cisco folks and many other companies still look up to Cisco. Get out now!
Cisco is the same with as IBM and Lenovo in the RTP area. It is not looked upon highly on resumes, especially if you have stayed a long while. Outside companies look at it as if you were brainwashed to stay there, let your skills go to the way side, and be programmed into a specific way of running a business. Companies that are hiring are not looking for those old skills that do not grow businesses. They are looking for people with entrepreneurial mindset, go getters, and willing to work to grow a company. Cisco is a company holding on to what was and not innovating. I see them as being done and just lagging around, acquiring businesses, and saying they can do it all while not doing anything.
Cisco engineers contributed immensely to quite a few innovative Silicon Valley products.
Some divisions like Webex are state of the art when it comes to software development/SRE expertise and experience.
You’ll do well with your skills to scale the business of any company that hires you. Good luck with your job hunt.
Depends on your definition of talent. Cisco people are talented with acronyms and high-level buzzwords.
"dynamically scale flexible cloud solutions"
There is no zero rush to grab Cisco LR folks. Recruiters and companies are aware that the hiring bar for Cisco is low and worse, people barely work 8 to 10 hours per week during their busiest times. So skills and mind are pretty rusted over time. That said, not all is lost. You might have to take a detour or step down in worse case, groom your skills, gain confidence, prepare well and you will be able to go from $11k per yer RSU at Cisco to $400K per year RSU at better companies.
When you leave Cisco you will find that people outside Cisco are far more talented. Cisco is trailing the industry trends for sometime. They send scouts to colleges but students go to other companies, so Cisco decided to move to an Open Workspaces, but that didn't help either.
Then Cisco shut down the buildings near the San Francisco (Santa Clara) 49'rs Ballpark. Cisco got stuck and for years. They tried switching from the waterfall methodology to agile, but that failed too.
They brought in consulting firms who informed the upper management team to create a new business. A business of meetings where they used, popsicle-sticks, clothespins, fidget-sticks, and crayons to demonstrate their commitment to creativity to other managers. It was a disaster but they paraded at least a thousand managers through. Everyone said this is awesome (like the Emperor's new clothes) and went back to work. Nothing really to show for that either.
You don't see jesters and fools working for companies that compete against Cisco, because:
LOL.. the oxymoron statement
" Do you have a list of companies that grab-up Cisconians, knowing that they are good catches?
FWIW: I'm in product management."
Since when are ciscoians considered " good catches" .. unless the job needs a highly political guy who doesnt know networking or the benefits/ differentiators of his own product ?
Even in IOT,I knew of a Product manager who had worked there for few years and was considered "senior" .. yet didnt know what the product differentiators, were....
Depends on where the internal opportunities reside. No SP.!! IOT is still growing. CX seems to be expanding a lot on the Customer Success Executive side.
Companys want technologists squared away in broad fundamentals and demonstrated hands-on experience.
The powerpoint, project management, and work politics are less important than the fundamentals.
There is discipline in the technical hands-on fundamentals. Focus on that.
If you can honestly demonstrate hands-on, sound knowledge fundamentals in network troubleshooting; and be also be quick and willing to jump in and help fix almost any new technical niche of the environments you work on, you will never ever have to worry about having a job.