Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

I might have to agree the SE community is screwed up at the moment.

Not really a poll is it?

I would have to say that the most messed up area right now is the SE community. I have never seen morale so low across the board. There’s been a gradual erosion of benefits, the rebranding of SE to SA led to confusion one the exact role, and an increased imbalance between comp plans for AMs and SEs (not withstanding that everyone has been shafted this year). Initiatives like C2E in the US haven’t helped.

I was never a fan of MK but at least I felt he was batting for the SE community at senior level. TC simply appears to be doing whatever he’s told by GE and now JS.

Personally, I think the end is nigh for the SE role. We’ll see a rebranding as Technical AMs and even greater reliance on technical skills in the overlay teams. Ah, wait, those skills don’t exist at scale at the overlay level.

We’re all doooomed.

Channels organization rates high (after the ELT). Especially in NA.

CSE org is big waste of time. They only dashboard jockies and do nothing but get in way trying to be customer relevance. They get invite to Impact this year but delivery peoples can’t go, when we interacts with customers know thrm better. They need to get rid of CSe org and use that money to hire better engineers. If we hsve to have cse, put them in Jeromy’s team and hire grad 6. You don’t need to be senior grade to look at dashboards and license reports to read them out. Most of time, cse do work to support delivery or sales thst is not even in cse defined role. They try to be relevant

Sorry to say this, current ELT is one of the worst group not only in Cisco but I would say in the whole IT industry. ELT has become a Hedge Fund Org - they manage every quarter by acquiring other companies, asking to take mandatory PTOs, asking to book Cisco Live US or IMPACT after Q3/4, selling exiting real estate, hiring G6-8 to back fill G11/12 domain experts, outsourcing L1 support, limiting travel to only senior mgmt ....etc etc etc.. Its all about managing the quarterly EPS. It is a painful fact that the ELT doesn't works for Cisco - they work for themself :-( . Their main part of the compensation is in stocks so their all efforts to manage the stock price.... They will sell the stocks in next few years and move to other org as an executive member. Even Chuck, MM all will move in few years. Why they should worry to build a strong engineering company? They work in Cisco to make money and they can do easily by managing the stock. Its all business for them and we fools things that it is all about their love for Cisco.

My vote is for the ELT being the most messed up

1. Decades of broken software. Yes, I actually have to power the entire new core of my network off then on again when I hit a currently shipping bug. It’s definitely not the first such bug but luckily this time I don’t need a truck roll. It’s a shame because the hardware guys built in some great HA features rendered useless by broken software.

2. Licensing. I pay for updates not because I need new features but because Cisco ALWAYS fails to deliver fully working and secure code and like Charlie Brown I always think they won’t pull away the football on the next release. They are literally writing themselves new minivans (see Dilbert for the reference.) Why don’t I go to competitors? Because they’re all ex-Cisco people with the same lack of design skills and much smaller bug fixing budgets. This is a terrible industry.

tac.
Why would any good engineer accept to be mistreated by mediocre/lunatic managers, ignored by mostly non-competent BU while watching bunches of "business something something" laughing at cafeteria and receiving fat paychecks for doing nothing?
These days people are in tac just because they had no idea where they are going, or joining tac just for Visa/work permit, and as soon as they got 'em, they run away from that he-l ho-e.

Tac has been mismanaged into the ground. There a still some people trying to keep the boat from sinking once cases get escalated or whatever we call it nowadays, however there is not enough of technical talent left to keep the boat afloat due to lr, er and attrition. It was a good ride whilst it lasted.

TAC
Licensing
IACV

4. Cafeteria Service
5. Janitorial Service
6. Engineering BU

Operations, IT, and Supply Chain

All of the above, in addition to others. Aside from 12-18 month lead times, TAC quality has gone down the tubes. This was one of our big differentiators, and customers now have to pay more for less quality. It’s a problem and customers have noticed. As for complexity, both product and license complexity has gotten out of control…. Again. It was good for a little while in the early cat9k days. But now we have 9600, 9500, 9400, 9300, 9200, 1st gen, X gen, L gen, LM gen…big buffer gen, small buffers gen,. Etccccccccc….

All good with engineering?

ELT

Yes

I would also attrition employee attrition and morale