I wish instead of hiring productive, dedicated, loyal ICs, the ELT would have the minimum sense of cutting the 4-5 layers of unnecessary management fat. That would save money, RSUs and make the company way leaner and efficient. Going by the quality of the hordes of VPs, SEDs, managers, Business Solutions Architects etc. - they are technically zero, never add any value, generate any business or revenue. Why keep these hordes of parasites fattening themselves on company profit and get rid of people who technically add weight to a purported high tech company? Baffling strategy by a management with myopic vision.
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"There are no companies in the world like the ones your dad or grandparents worked at."
My dad worked for AT&T in the 70s/80s. They used the same layoff tactics back then to keep salaries low.
Layoffs back then weren't reported publicly and those laid off were assumed to be poor performers. Many weren't able to obtain other corporate jobs.
This middle management is the cancer, ki-ling the company slowly.
As is your technical leadership, as are your developers. As a customer from the early 1990s you've never hired people who understood software engineering. Even on the most conservative release branches whole subsystems still don't come up and work.
This middle management is the cancer, ki-ling the company slowly. They manipulate the data for their need helping ELT to make bad decisions, letting wrong people be part of the LR.
There are no companies in the world like the ones your dad or grandparents worked at.
Being old, dad yes, grandparents most definitely not.
The current state of employment is to immediately begin planning your next job search when you start a new job.
I was doing this from the 1980s. Big opportunities, big responsibilities, big technical growth and big income growth. Cisco was by far the worst company I ever worked for, but I learned many things I needed to avoid as I moved on which made if far easier to identify red flags in interviews.
You mentioned the absolute worst quality for an employee: Loyal.
I'm loyal to myself and my ethics. I've always contributed more than I've been paid, and if it means telling management to pound sand to make that possible I do so. I have some serious ROI events I can show in the abstract at my next interviews and use them to see if the next company values dogma or success.
You mentioned the absolute worst quality for an employee: Loyal. There are no companies in the world like the ones your dad or grandparents worked at. The current state of employment is to immediately begin planning your next job search when you start a new job. Companies only give 1-4% pay raises on average. Rehiring for YOUR job is 20% more than your salary. The company wins the longer you stay there. Once hired, start adding to your resume. At 6 months, start sending out resumes. At your 1-year bogus performance evaluation, indicate offers you are receiving outside the company. If they don't meet it, leave. There is literally no benefit to stay with a company anymore unless you have a signed contract with exact details on pay, bonuses, and exit money.
Beautifully said @cwx+1rV92X25
It always baffles me that people are willingly blind to just how companies work. It's a bunch of narcissists and sociopaths at the top, all devouring each other in a concrete dystopian jungle.
Work is not about work. I repeat, WORK IS NOT ABOUT WORK. The sooner you get that simple fact, the more you'll understand why companies are structured the way they are.
The layers are actually necessary. As you climb, the ranks at Cisco you encounter more people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. These people would abuse naive individual contributors if they interacted with them often. The executive level mostly consists of people with zero empathy for people and fake charm.
Also one of the rewards for reaching higher levels is "authority without accountability." The layers are used to buffer higher ups from being accountable for anything