Many received a significant increase in pay after leaving Cisco. On the flip side, they are now much busier, have less flexibility, and sometimes benefits are not be as good. I personally know people who regretted leaving this place after a few months. Why exaggerate that this place is the worst and that in other companies everything is ideal? It doesn't benefit anyone.
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I love Cisco. It’s easy to hide and do nothing (CX) and I have lots of time to train and hang out with friends. Once you figure out the “minimum effort, maximum results “ way of working, cisco is hard to beat.
Those jobs don't require going into student debt, or living in the most expensive part of the country.
MOST of the jobs at Cisco do NOT require living in SJC. Less than half the US jobs are in SJC. And I don't even think US jobs are 50% of all the jobs globally.
In my BU, from the VP down, no one is in SJC. From the Senior Director down, everyone is "remote" and 2/3 don't even live/work in a town with a Cisco office, much less "campus" like RTP, BXB, RCND, etc. Some of the guys had to drive 3 hrs to the nearest Cisco office to pick up their replacement laptops for refresh before the pandemic when they wouldn't ship laptops directly to your home.
"There are obviously worse jobs."
Those jobs don't require going into student debt, or living in the most expensive part of the country.
Cisco isn’t the worse. Coal mines are the worse. The clown with the shovel behind the elephant ranks up there. Podiatry. Road ki-l collector. There are obviously worse jobs. How you evaluate Cisco and it’s worth really depends on what you want out of a job and your life. In San Jose the pay is average (mid 200s-low 300s/year doesn’t even buy a townhome in the Bay Area). But the folks in RTP do fine. Most people I have worked with don’t work full weeks (but are considered “full time”)- it’s a dream for a parent who wants to earn income and be a SAH parent. And coming soon- 4 day work weeks! No one outside cisco will respect you as a a tech insider and the technology will always be 7 years behind, but it’s not obsolete. At the end of the day, you will live an above average life (but not an overly exciting or challenging one) make a decent (but not excellent) wage, and manage not to drool on yourself (but won’t be considered the smartest in your field). For many people that’s a fine life and definitely not the “worse.”
Good post from @1ssr+1gy9O0ET. In my mind, Cisco started going downhill after that first big layoff in 2001 and continued on a steady downward slope after that.
Majority of Cisco employees work 2 hours a day to show their face on Zoom calls while collecting a second salary working another full time job, sometimes with competing products
Sad that Cisco management is aware of this and do nothing to stop it
I learnt a lot at Cisco.. just that i was underpaid and under appreciated. Would love to come back to a different business unit.. Over a period of time, you tend to realize that most of the people are really clowns, to any company you go to, and you are just working and willing to get paid more, to withstand all this set of buffoons.
BTW at my new job, i dont have early morning calls, night calls, evening calls, weekend calls.. I get paid more, the work is technical . Just that i have to deal with on-call three weeks in a year.. But then, i would accept that any day, rather than having to deal with working late friday nights or sunday nights, every week of the year.
I agree, Cisco is probably not the worse company. I just happened to be in what I believe was the worse business unit in Cisco at the time for far too long. For me, the grass is definitely greener now. More pay - check, busier - not close, less flexibility - flat out NO. I have left for 1 1/2 years, no regrets whatsoever.
It's not an exaggeration. Cisco pays top technical talent poorly, under utilizes their technical skills, and stunts their careers with out of date engineering practices. If you are an above average technical contributor, Cisco is not the place for you. If you are average, you probably can't do much better than Cisco. The company has organized itself around average to low performers and rewards them well compared to the rest of the industry. Cisco is where tech careers go to die.
Those people didn't do their homework if that's the case. Cisco was a good place to work but it wasn't the best place that I worked. The good ride ended in 1999-2000. Steady slope downward from there.
You don't obtain marketable experience at Cisco, we are 15-20 years behind the industry.