Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

They are both very similar. They are both established company, similar products with little opportunity for growth. I would look at what you are working on, your manager, and the organization that you are reporting into. If you get stuck working on old technologies or have a bad manager, your career will go nowhere. If you working on newer technologies or have a good manager, then you have more opportunities and should things go south, your skills will be in more demand.

Fortinet.

It's like choosing between a window or aisle seat on a Boeing 737 Max.

@1tkf+1j72grai
Thank you,

@cpm+1j72grai I worked at both Juniper and Cisco and resigned at both for exactly the same reason: dysfunctional management. While at Juniper, I was approached by Arista, an offer was made but I turned that down - too much ego.

My take (I am based out of Europe): Juniper offers you better benefits (as you say), which is not a bad thing to have. Juniper is still run like a start-up. Good part of that is if you have a good manager, you can have a peaceful and productive work-life balance and environment of growth as I did when I first started there. I had total autonomy over my expenses and work - no one micromanaged me. But then my manager left and an id--t from our own team, who was junior to me, was promoted to become the manager. He was technically backward, had no people management experience or skill. He started to bully people around, micromanage everyone and as a result most people left within 6 to 9 months - led by myself. Several left for Cisco. That "manager" got shafted after a year when upper management realised that he was just political and waste of space but by that time the damage was done - they had to rebuild the team.

Cisco experience is about the same except for the constant threat of layoffs which is an additional source of stress. My manager got affected by one of those layoffs, we had no manager for a year (so all our careers to a backstage as Cisco has no performance evaluation). Loads of decent people in upper management were made to "retire" as part of restructuring. The manager that finally inherited us had no previous management experience, had/has very poor people skills, started to micromanage people and guess what - 7-8 of us left within 1 year of that person taking over. Some moved internally, I left Cisco altogether.

Cisco is a very large company, and if you know people you can move around internally provided there are head counts and no hiring freeze. I could move around myself if I had waited but I did not wish to. I could not absorb any more nonsense in the name of "management". My peace of mind and professional self-respect is important to me.

Juniper is a smaller company and overall benefits are better. If you have good manager, and do not have delusions of becoming the CTO/CEO, then you can have a good working existence there.

From career stagnation point of view: fairly the same. Both places require politics to get ahead in career. Cisco has no performance evaluation so you are a hostage of your manager's delusions - in other words, you have to ki$$ a$$ at Cisco if you wish to get ahead - no other choice.

At Juniper, if you are a good guy with good skillsets and decent interpersonal skill then you can set up a rapport with upper management and coast. Most Cisco upper management ( even some mid-managers and directors) are so arrogant that they won't even look at you sooner than they will step on you.

Morale of it all: same sh!t, different stink

Nokia.

I couldn't cross the Arista interview, Interview is very easy, the only thing is the interviewer didn't show any respect for my background and at times he has outrated me dismissing me for simple questions.

Juniper is really interested in me and giving me a good pay rise, I was told by Juniper buddies that once I go there, I will be stagnated and so I am confused. My situation at cisco is not great, not that bad. So totally confused.

I am trying google, panw and zscalaer in parallel.

GOOG

networking equipment is not a lucrative industry... avoid both

Arista

Again?
There was a similar post months back. Why are you asking us again?

We’ll on is an ant compared to the othe.