Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

Opposite Take On Layoffs - It is needed!

I am intentionally taking an Opp take on layoffs.

It is definitely needed.

  1. I have personally seen so many Grade12+ pencil pushers. All they do is just ask questions and feel asking question makes them intelligent or will be considered as a deliverable.
  1. What did Webex do when Zoom and MS Teams took over. 4 yrs back Webex was at Rank 1 in surveys and now Webex is 3rd or 4th probably
  1. There is still a lot of fat in each team even after laying ofd 4000 ppl. SLT doesn't understand cloud at all. The whole upper hierarchy (Grade12+) is 50yr+ folks who are stil stuck in early 2000s.
  1. Senior IT leaders shake when asked to design an application like Amazon. IT can only design static pages, any dynamic feature or app is where Cisco's IT is lost it.
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Post ID: @OP+1k9azGbX

7 replies (most recent on top)

@brm+1k9azGbX
Covid hasn't changed things......LRs have been going on regularly for 20+ years at Cisco. This is normal.....and it's sad.

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Post ID: @1dlp+1k9azGbX
Hey kiddo, your ageism is showing.

Their age is also showing. Having been a senior person in software there I can confirm few senior people had basic systems skills, software skills, computer science skills, knowledge of the languages or operating systems they worked with, or even an understanding of the concept of best practices. Having been in high school in the 1970s I can say few had skills up to even the standard expected in that context. Odds are they were no more competent when they were younger.

At scale it’s not just the people, it’s a corporate culture which prevents anyone at any age from really changing things. I’d say until things get so bad that they have to change nothing will happen but with so many decades of poor quality legacy code it just won’t be possible to dig there way out of that to reach a solid surface and build on that.

As a customer of much of the FAANG world it’s clear many of their engineers are also extremely poor at what they do and there is a lot of legacy bug fixing going on there as well. Looking at the number of failed projects and the fact that these companies have had to rely on many acquisitions should make clear they aren’t getting the value out of their own people either, but like Cisco the margins are so high no one cares.

If you want real new and cool your best bet is to find a smaller company which is well managed. The latter part is EXTREMELY rare but if you can find it and take full advantage of being able to take on a broad set of responsibilities it will improve your skills in a way that is all but impossible in most groups at large companies.

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Post ID: @1qnf+1k9azGbX

Hey kiddo, your ageism is showing.

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Post ID: @kyb+1k9azGbX

Well you are making an assumption that the 12+'s are hit hardest. I bet that won't be the case. The fat is never trimmed where it is needed.

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Post ID: @ngu+1k9azGbX

While I agree about the middle management. That's not who they are looking at Cisco has little to no way to truly capture value and negligible metrics. Ask a manager if they've paid for themselves this year in saving and see if you get an answer

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Post ID: @zlo+1k9azGbX

The entire Valley has gone layoff mad. Every single company is laying off right now.

Everyone is looking into valuation models, productivity models, etc.

Covid has changed things 1000%.

Nothing will be the same.

It looks like we'll have a glut of avaialble engineers soon.

I was LR'ed in 2018 and I was able to find a comparable job very quick.

I really hope that my friends at Cisco avoild the LR, and if not, I hope they find jobs quickly. The job market is still solid.

I wish you all the best and know that you are valued in the marketplace, something will come up.

Good luck and godspeed!

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Post ID: @brm+1k9azGbX

Lowkey with you here but embrace the downvotes. Collab BU needed a shakedown. It’s a good product with a LOT of bloat, and could do very well if streamlined and marketed for all the advantages.

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Post ID: @rvu+1k9azGbX

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