I get the vibe that most people posting here do not work at actually creating the products (be it hardware or software), just sales, middle-man, maybe some post-sales support.
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Engineer here. I think the biggest problem that exists right now for the team I’m on is the volume of different things we are working on. Most of which are the top-down things that no customer has even asked us for. Also everything is critical. We need to stay focused on listening to our customers and helping them solve problems.
Even if your product managers are competent, they just get overruled by some VP that doesn't know what they are talking about at all and then we waste time building something no one wants to buy on some forced march schedule that just makes people more burnt out.
We engineer can sell better than the sales sl--e which only care about golf and lies. Sales is worthless vipers who steal oxygens! Engineers can design build and produce great products to sell themselves!!!! And no pays commission, so we can get small bonus for our works.
For the comment do products people want to buy:
Upon arriving in the U.S., Yuan joined WebEx, a web conferencing startup, where he was one of the first 20 hires.[9][8] The company was acquired by Cisco Systems in 2007, at which time Yuan became vice president of engineering.[10] In 2011, he pitched a new smartphone-friendly video conferencing system to Cisco management.[20] When the idea was rejected, Yuan left Cisco to establish his own company, Zoom Video Communications.[10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Yuan#:~:text=When%20the%20idea%20was%20rejected%2C%20Yuan%20left%20Cisco,to%20establish%20his%20own%20company%2C%20Zoom%20Video%20Communications.
Zoom, Webex, Palo Alto.... sounds familiar? Remember Kodak? They had the digital camera in 1975. ...
If there are engineers here, someone should tell them to start building products that customers actually want to buy.
Cisco couldn't hire competent software engineers in the go-go 1990s when "the salary was the bonus" and all the failed attempts to replace IOS are riddled with problems just like the original. Any new products built on these are going to be every bit as problematic.
Yes but predominantly super busy building things with limited resources rather than sitting around complaining.
The "we spent three years with an ever growing team on this one month project working 16 hour days! We're great!" shows you've been over resourced for ages. No, with competent staff it should have been a six month project with 8 hour days and you aren't being confronted with the reality of this.
Folks who make comments such as 'start building products that customers actually want to buy' need to consider that it's actually not the engineers who are supposed to be deciding 'what' to build.
In a good company marketing is both collecting information from customers about what they need in an abstract sense and pushing out a message of what is already or about to become available. Translating those abstract needs into requirements is a process called "systems engineering," something Cisco has never done well and in many cases not at all. Customers are far better at describing pain points than defining optimal solutions (see the fictional Homer-mobile) and engineering is needed to get from one to the other.
More engineers than anything else.
What if I tell you that I want to build products that customers want to buy but there are not enough resources to do so? UX is impacted in every round of LRs. I don't understand how we are supposed to build quality products if they want us to be like a 5in1 shampoo
Yes... there are engineers here. Folks who make comments such as 'start building products that customers actually want to buy' need to consider that it's actually not the engineers who are supposed to be deciding 'what' to build. Speaking as one who has been employed in other companies, Cisco's product management (the people actually responsible for the 'what') are absolutely the worse I've ever seen, and in most cases unfortunately leave it up to engineers to 'figure it out' even though we generally only get involved with customers when there are problems. So... please don't cast stones until you see the entire picture
I dunno have any of the engineers who actually create products test their software updates before pushing them out or do they use the customers as beta testers and let the engineers who don’t “actually create products” to clean up the mess?
"do not work at actually creating the products": Product teams should quit thinking that they are the holy grail, and without them, the world stops. Every time an FR is thrown at them, which comes directly from a customer, the first d-mb question is, "Why does the customer need it?" Build things the customer needs and is asking for rather than sitting and hoping to win on laurels that worked in the 2000s. Take a leaf or two from the Juniper Mists of the world that has the AI truly embedded into whatever they do.
Pfff - Enough salt for the day. Time to go and try to sell your cr-ppy product and support it with people who are just picking up the garbage you "actually" create.
what you described in the post is a whole cisco
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Doubt Cisco gear will sell itself without sales to sell it and support staff to support the poor quality software that folks like you develop.
If there are engineers here, someone should tell them to start building products that customers actually want to buy.
Yes but predominantly super busy building things with limited resources rather than sitting around complaining.