I'd love to leave Cisco for greener pastures but I'm having trouble finding them. I did some research on each company in our industry I considered applying to and what I found is that every single one has the exact same issues as Cisco. It's enough to look at their pages on this forum - in 90 percent of cases they have the same problems we do. I want to leave, but I don't see a better alternative. So for now, I'm sticking with the devil I know.
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I want to start out by saying I got laid off last year. However, I found a job making 50% more than my role at Cisco. You won’t ever make the most money at Cisco. However, the benefits, PTO, and work life balance probably won’t get much better. Not to mention, you will always have a nice pay day waiting for you when you get laid off.
You have decide between making more money and being unhappy or having great benefits, work life balance, etc and being unhappy. Personally, I’ll take more money.
I keep repeating it. Corporate America is one big ugly blob. Go to another IT company and you'll have the same clueless folks you're complaining about at Cisco. Intelligence follows a bell-shaped distribution. Why would Cisco have the monopoly on imbeciles? We all know total director+ tools who left Cisco for greener pastures. They are now inflicting damage elsewhere.
Find another industry.
All companies have problems; the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence.
If I were a younger person at Cisco I’d be looking to move to another discipline elsewhere in the engineering discipline outside of Cisco such as civil or aeronautical or move into law or medicine. IT is a mug’s game and networking the most commoditised of them all.
I did some research on each company in our industry...
Networking is basically Cisco, the people Cisco laid off, and the people who keep taking the boat from he-l to he-l carrying a small company with no product and no intellectual property between Cisco and Juniper. They're all trying to eat each other's market share because they're all legacy companies with a relatively small number of customers which doesn't leave them with a clear path to new high margin technologies on which they're uniquely able to execute.
A few starting points to think about:
- (me) How can I apply my skills to something not primarily focused on networking?
- (peers) Can I do the work I do best while cross training with other experts in the other technologies required to bring everything together?
- (management) Can I do quality work or will I always be chasing the horses in the parade with a shovel and a bucket?
- (company) Is a smaller company without massive technical debt but also without a name everyone recognizes a better option to grow the next step of my career?
If you haven't been laid off and are not otherwise desperate, step outside yourself and look at how to grow your career rather than just how to get out of Cisco. I've done both small and large companies and for me I grew great skills at the small companies and grew great bank at the big companies. I'd never retire doing only great work and I'd be completely useless if I stayed a big company too long.
At least go and get paid more money.