I left Cisco San Jose a couple years ago when it became clear I was no longer the target demographic. So glad I got out of that sick twisted corporate culture. So glad I got out of California. I check this site now and then to see if anything has changed. It has...things are worse. My message to those who remain: get out, move, there are many companies and places to live that are better. Life is short. Spend it wisely.
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In fact, one's age is irrelevant to me. As long as someone is doing their work, shouldn't that matter?
Moving back from ageism to the original topic of Cisco being a poor place to work, at least on the software side Cisco has no meaningful metrics to know if the work being done is actually net positive or net negative. I could write a tome of examples of where management had no idea where things went seriously wrong and they never cared when they were later informed. This means there is no real accountability and therefore no incentive to do better.
So which is worse? Paying $300,000 in loaded labor for an engineer to sleep in a cubical or pay $500,000 for an engineer to make a mistake that costs the company tens of millions of dollars and contributes nothing positive to offset that cost? Cisco has promoted many of the second example.
And... if they are not... as a manager/leader... it's up to me to ensure my team has the tools to succeed.
I've never worked with a manager at Cisco who even understood the concept, where the safe route was always to "keep doing the same wrong things forever." This destroys not only people who have been at Cisco for 20 years but the 30 year olds who came to Cisco straight out of college.
I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but I'd like someone here to name one other technology company worth over $1B where senior management says "the use of the word week in a schedule is a fireable offense" on projects that won't ship for at least three years.
Dear Ryan -
What an absolutely ignorant and nasty comment > "If you are >50 in tech you are old. Go get a job as a greeter. You can not keep pace and grasp new tech. Seriously"
You are insulting Gen-X... and younger Boomers who built our business. We earned our experience and considering we are in tech... we become SMEs on the latest tech ... whether they are novelties or planet changing. You presumption is 100% INCORRECT.
Speaking only for myself as a Gen-X... I salivated to work in global high tech but didn't enter the market until my 40s b/c no roles in my area of expertise existed in my immediate area. (Enter remote working... yay!) I've been at it starting with Cisco for 10-years now. (I was part of the 2016 LR) I'm thriving and prefer to NOT have ignorant folks like you share my space.
And for the record, I can probably still out party (if I wanted to), out-work, and out do anyone stupid enough like you to say I should be a "greeter." I meet/exceed my KPIs, improve processes, programs, and GTM plans/results.
Further, I am able to work EASILY with anyone at any age. I.Do.Not.Discriminate. So sorry being WOKE bothers you!
In fact, one's age is irrelevant to me. As long as someone is doing their work, shouldn't that matter? And... if they are not... as a manager/leader... it's up to me to ensure my team has the tools to succeed.
Clearly, you are not management material. But there's good news. YOU CAN CHANGE.
What’s with the ba----g on the 50+ people? I’m over 55, have an IQ over 140, and am still innovating, along with the wisdom that the younger generations do not understand.
No one can know everything which means that anyone at any age can bring something unique to a specific table that no one else there can. I know, I've been doing exactly that successfully for four decades, and I'm no super genius. It's a rare few that truly invest their own personal time in keeping their skills up over a career, and I'll take a "good" person who learns over a "great" person who doesn't 100% of the time regardless of age.
If you left Cisco why the fu-k are you on this board commenting on Cisco. Get a life loser.
To help the few people at Cisco who aren't losers realize where they are and where they could be because so few seem to know.
Layoffs have been part of business culture for 40 years and part of Cisco for 22, and yet every round Cisco employees come here to scream that Cisco is having its first layoff and the world is ending and everyone is so unified in their opposition that everyone will quit. Every time these people are wrong about every thing, so we know they are authentic Cisco employees.
Perhaps 2-3 each round who weren't laid off can be taught to bulk up their skills and professional networks and explore what other options are out there, and if they find something better will take the risk to make that change. In the vast majority of cases it's easier to get a new job when you still have a job so being proactive is a win.
If you left Cisco why the fu-k are you on this board commenting on Cisco. Get a life loser.
What’s with the ba----g on the 50+ people? I’m over 55, have an IQ over 140, and am still innovating, along with the wisdom that the younger generations do not understand.
You can be young and stupid. You can be old and stupid. But one thing for sure: if you're happy working at the big C, you're stupid.
I love working at CSCO (four years so far), but I think I’m much younger than the people on this board. There are some grouchy people out there.
@Ryan & @Vivek can kiss off.
I'm over 50 and I deal with microservices architecture, implement CI/CD security, and we're moving away from Rabbit MQ. Just because I'm old doesn't mean that I "can not keep pace and grasp new tech".
Is it harder? Sure. Technology seems more complicated and more involved. You can't just stand up a new server and expect everything to be able to connect to it and use it. Is the new server in a network space with security groups that don't allow ingress on XYZ port? Are there firewall rules blocking Internet access out of the network space the new server is in? Are there firewall rules blocking access to other internal services or applications? Is the new server going to be Zero Trust enabled? If so, there are special requirements. Is the new server behind a load balancer? That impacts the information needed to submit an ACL request. These are just a fraction of the things I have to deal with in regards to just a single facet of what I do on a daily basis that I didn't have to deal with 10 yrs ago, or even 5 yrs ago. Moving from smaller bare metal hosts running a single application to VMs running on bigger hosts that run multiple VMs still running a single application to running applications as containers running a single service (NGINX, PostgreSQL, etc.) or core application that are run together as a pod to replace a VM. It's been a paradigm shift in how to build and host applications, but I'm still very capable of doing my job, thank you very much.
I can't wait until Ryan gets to age 50. How will you like it when some young know-it-all tries to tell him to go be a greeter somewhere? With places getting rid of cashiers in favor of self-checkout lines and in-store tablets running the same app as what users run on their phones to place food orders, there won't be but 1 or 2 people interfacing w/ the public and the rest will be pulling products off the shelves for "pickup" or "curbside" orders or cooking food. If I were Ryan, I'd be very scared of my job prospects as a "greeter" in another 10, 15, or 20 yrs.
“elite researchers”. Riiiiight!
Siri does not qualify nor does ChatGPT….
Do another Google search.
@Ryan you can eff right off with your comment. I learn and grasp new tech every day because I work with elite researchers in emerging tech. Wanna talk microservices architecture? CI/CD security? Debate the merits of Kafka vs. Rabbit MQ? Perhaps you'd like to learn about federated ML and how it will influence a number a different industries. Or maybe post-quantum cryptography/cryptoagility? SMH. Prejudice is never attractive and just demonstrates ignorance.
EM from Google Nest not Google
Cisco CPX cloud is a circus! They hired a woman from Google who brought her cronies and she has changed the culture and not in a good way. Very arrogant and talks down to everyone yet has zero clue. She’s cutting jobs everywhere and is a bully and unprofessional. It is a toxic, back biting environment wandering aimlessly as she and her entourage of sheep are demolishing people lives. I’m glad I left after witnessing a negative rating on honoring the “Cisco Values”. Tearing people down is not flattering. I was hoping for a dynamic leader that generates business and excitement. Not an authoritarian know it all who has shown no communication to her organization outside of here are my sheep. No vision, the dynamic leader skills of a corpse and clearly a power hungry scorned leader with an axe to grind who clearly enjoys humiliating exceptional and experienced leaders (not Me but I’ve witnessed before resigning). No soliciting of information to make wise decisions. Just an ivory tower figure head with zero personality or leadership ability. No training for employees, teams are overworked and deliver at all costs. Customer confidence, agent integrity and protecting our customers and their data mean nothing to this tribe. Maria…what were you thinking? Finally Chuck and Fran, save your lip service at your Cisco check ins if that’s what you still call those. Your actions do not match your actions hiring a hostile corpse to bury your cloud product! I wanted to stay but people first is too important and you have failed with this hostile hire.
By definition they're hard to find but I recommend smallish but well establish companies that are well run and can repeatedly deliver on time and on budget. You'll have an opportunity to take on a much broader range of tasks and as a result be able to grow in ways most people at large companies will never do. Look for business segments that pay for quality and where the tasks are not trivial.
You want to join FAANG? Congratulations! Your 12 PhDs entitle you to fix decade old bugs. The lack of quality of many of their products speak far louder than titles and brands, and like Cisco if you drink the Koolaid that "we're the top 10% and therefore never need to learn anything ever again!" you'll quickly become worse than useless.
I see a lot of commentary about the over 50 set, but the ones that are useless now were useless at 25 as well. If you're a Scrum baby who has to have high school homework assignments barfed into your face like a baby bird you are going to be useless on large programs at any age. This is one of the reasons Cisco's executives keep screaming DO YOU WANT TO BUY A BOX?
Any recommendations on "where" to go; I'm looking to escape too...I keep hearing things are awful at AWS, Apple, etc....
If you are >50 in tech you are old. Go get a job as a greeter. You can not keep pace and grasp new tech. Seriously.
I think some workers were like me or grew up with a sense of loyalty to a company. It took being laid off to realize that there is no loyalty from an IT company. They count everyone as an expense and nothing more. Once you realize that you are nothing more than an expense to a company, that is when you can free yourself from how bad it is to really stay some place.
One thing about it though is all IT companies have that under 50 sense. Once you hit that age of 50, it gets very difficult.