I know attrition is high, I know the job market is tight and we can't hire competent replacements, but that doesn't mean that I will indefinitely be doing two jobs without any extra compensation. The ELT gets paid the big bucks supposedly for a reason, so they need to figure out something because I'm done - and I know of plenty of others who feel the same way.
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I was in that same boat folks, unmotivated, complacent, without a light at the end of the tunnel for me to focus on. Took a major risk after 21 years at the mothership, and after spending 5 months looking I recently landed a MUCH better job that pays a lot more for a more challenging, engaging, and fun job.
Life is too short!
I know of at least one engineer who left engineering to drive a taxi as the hourly pay was better. I can see from the comments about the lack of degrees the people with degrees who are generating all the breakage. I can see from the complaints about QA the lack of awareness of high school economics to recognize a career path with no respect and poor pay discourages talent from pursuing a much needed job role. I was lucky enough to work with one QA guy at Cisco who really was a genius and it made not only the product but everyone’s lives much better because the entire team didn’t keep getting dragged into poorly done triages. Is it really only the earnest worker bee’s fault that their manager is abusive? The lack of basic systems skill continues. “Do you wanna buy a box?”
And too often QA doesn't understand how features are used and misses heavy impact bugs. Run-of-the-mill QA is quickly replaced by programmers automating unit tests. In my team whoever writes code tests that code too. I don't need QA that's totally detached from development. I guess that's a broad trend?
It depends on what the QA job is. Back in the late 90's, I worked at a defense contractor whose QA team was completely outside of the Engineering teams. Their only job was to ensure that ONLY the code changes approved by the Change Review Board were made to the code. They didn't understand any code at all. They looked at the approved CR, looked at the code, and if all the requested changes were not present exactly as requested, and if any changes that were not requested were made, they failed the release and it didn't go forward no matter how badly Engineering needed that release completed until the changes were fixed to match the CR.
Like you said, it seems like most stuff is just peer reviewed by other developers on the team, who may be too busy to really review it other than a "yup, that'll work" glance at it and rubber stamp it. And, if your team requires unit tests, most likely the developer of the code writes the unit tests and ensures that they pass (whether or not they really test the code effectively).
someone on my team who does DevTest for our code is a high school dropout but he got a ccna cert and whaabuum, he's working along side people with CS/Eng degrees. only happens at cisco.
"that QA market seems dry out"
Ahhh QA people. Usually folks that weren't good enough to earn a CS degree and write code. And too often QA doesn't understand how features are used and misses heavy impact bugs. Run-of-the-mill QA is quickly replaced by programmers automating unit tests. In my team whoever writes code tests that code too. I don't need QA that's totally detached from development. I guess that's a broad trend?
I saw many old folks like me on the same boat, unconditionally took over the jobs when people left. The harsh reality is that QA market seems dry out. To change area to be DE or Automation engineer that put you in the battlefield with younger folks.
One of my young coworker(2 yr experience) spending one year on code-camp. Now he got an offer the base salary is higher than mine.
Just start interviewing elsewhere, you'd be surprised how quickly another company will hire you, likely with a decent raise. Unfortunately, Cisco is dying. They couldn't even pull off growth significant growth when every other tech company in the industry had. If Cisco was lead by someone competent, our stock would be $200+.
It's your own fault. You have painted yourself into a corner by agreeing to do the extra work essentially for free. No one to blame except yourself. Too late now, you have already told them you will accept the conditions. Moving on outside is probably the best next step.
Sometimes you don't really get a choice in the matter, other than leaving. I'm sorry for the long post, but it helps to explain how you can do two people's jobs without being overworked. You have to set boundaries and be prepared to find new work if they don't like it.
Back in the late '90's, a company I was working for got bought out and the buying company announced in Oct that they were moving the work force and work from TX, a no income tax state, to AZ, a high income tax state. The current site would be shut down by the following Sept and anyone who did not accept the transfer would be laid off in Sept (11 months away).
I was a fairly new hire and had signed an agreement stating that I'd have to pay back (not pro-rated, unfortunately) the $19K in relocation benefits paid to me to take the job 6 months prior and had 5 months left after the announcement was made and then 5 months before I could get the severance package (2 wks + 1 wk / yr of service and 2 wks severance if I agreed not to sue, so 5 wks severance).
During that 5 months between the announcement and the end of my 1 yr work agreement, 4 of my team mates quit and my manager quit. As each person quit, their work got added to my plate or someone else's plate, but when that person left, both plates ended up with mine until I was doing the work of 5 people.
With that said, there was no way I was working 200 hrs a week. It's impossible. Frankly I wasn't even working 41 hrs a week. I simply spent 20% of my time doing my job and 80% of my time doing the other 4 person's jobs. I basically set it up such that I was supporting my projects on Monday, one person's projects on Tue, another person's projects on Wed, so on and so forth for Thurs and Fri. No matter how urgent or how hard they pushed, I stuck to my g-ns and said it's not your day. Today's project's priorities are just as high, are costing the company $'s and I'm behind schedule on their work due to being able to only give it 20% of my time. Tell me what you want me to work on for your project on your project's designated day.
Other than a lot of hate and pressure, they did nothing about my workload or my compensation. Because I was salaried, there was no talk of paying me overtime, much less time and a half for work beyond 40 hrs, so I didn't do it. That company used a billing system and we had to record our hours worked by the close of the day every day and charging our time to each project in 6 minute (1/10th hour) intervals to get paid for our 40 hrs per week. I was hoping that, between the Oct announcement and April when my new-hire commitment expired that they'd let me out of it or fire me so I could get a local job before all the currently open jobs were filled by my co-workers.
Yes, once my new-hire commitment ran out in Apr, I started my job search hoping to find work before Sept because 5 wks severance was not worth sticking around, but the 5 people I worked with had pretty much filled the available jobs I was skilled for. Suffice it to say, that I ended up sticking around until my severance date, managed to use all my PTO before my last week and started a new job while using my PTO and took unpaid time from my new job to work the last few days of my old job to out-process and get my severance package.
At least Chuck gets to feel good about himself. He gave BLM lots of money so Patrisse Cullors could buy millions in real estate and pass money off to her relatives.
All I can say is that Chuck Robbins really destroyed Cisco.
It's your own fault. You have painted yourself into a corner by agreeing to do the extra work essentially for free. No one to blame except yourself. Too late now, you have already told them you will accept the conditions. Moving on outside is probably the best next step.
It's time for you to start looking externally so you can remove yourself from your abusive work environment
So the OP is putting in about 12-16hrs per day while I'm here working only 2hrs per day and still being paid as if I worked 8hrs, hahaha. OP is either incompetent or is a loner or both.
If you think you're worth more - then just leave?
Otherwise, stop whinging and get on with it. The job of 2 at Cisco is about the same as the job of 1 in others companies, anyway.
Don't complain about it, find a job externally.
Get a raise or leave. If you are valued they will pay. If they don't pay they are telling you to leave. You exchange your time for money. Spend your time wisely. You can make more money, but you cannot make more time.
Correction we do not want to hire and pay competitive salaries in thé current environment.
Join the club. I am in U.K. and in the same boat. Have been in the same boat for last 1.5 years.