Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

What if you are 50? I've seen too many smart older engineers pushed out of the workforce

Out of the workforce or out of Cisco? Most I’ve known who are locked out of the workforce were really nice people but had no useful skills. I have friends over 50 who are continuously being recruited because they changed jobs building both skills and relationships along the way. With top kids coming out of college having built real skills outside course requirements smart is no longer enough at any level.

In sort of an old school way, for better or worse, you dedicate years of your life getting really good at a single thing.

You only get really good if you can learn how to progressively get better then apply that knowledge. The company doesn’t measure it and therefore the company doesn’t value it, and kids who spent the first 3-5 years out of school at Cisco are just as damaged as the people over 60 who still haven’t made Technical Leader because one line bug fixes aren’t real software development. When you are confronted by how many Principal Engineers in high end routing/switching don’t know anything about things as basic as scaling, reliability or risk management it’s frightening, and that wouldn’t be possible if senior management weren’t also highly incompetent.

What if you are 50? I've seen too many smart older engineers pushed out of the workforce

Get busy living, or get busy dying.

Problem for me is that Cisco is overworking tac right now. So there is no time for this. I need to go back in hunger mode like I was before I made 100k. Work all day, study all night, but the way of the world the past 2 years has taken a lot out of me and I just want to pursue hobbies and spend time with family after work, so it’s like being stuck. Then Cisco makes you so mad it’s like fu-k it, I’ll just build a fortress around myself and fu-k them for money while they try to fu-k me by doing just enough and a little more than the minimum, but not really giving them my all. But yeah, I’m working on my escape. Have a promising lead in a 200k job where I’ll be given time to train and walk away with 4+ cloud certs. So….meh. I’ll get back into grind mode eventually. Maybe I’ll buckle down this winter.

If u don’t want to always upskill, then IT is not for you.

Cisco also type casts people. In sort of an old school way, for better or worse, you dedicate years of your life getting really good at a single thing.

The problem with this approach is many but not limited to making you believe that one skill is the only marketable assets you have or that you don’t have amplitudes is adjacent fields like sales, marketing, management, ect.

One thing I have learned in my career is that, like a mid-et at a urinal, I was going to have to stay on my toes.