I am older worker (14 years at cisco ) now at a cisco partner with a significant raise. cisco talent hard to find in the work market place. Even for cisco. all the offices i go back into have all new (noob) engineers. open requisitions sit unfilled at cisco - playing the game of "i met quota understaffed" in management. bad management. younger workers are cheaper and more compliant. they also dont have as much familiarity (and resistance) to the obviously bad, bloated, middle management ranks. I have high hopes for the new class of recruits though.... they know there are no more career employers, so TELL CISCO HOW THEY NEED TO IMPROVE. Be aware that as your salary builds, so does your prospect of layoff. Have Cisco reinstitute the bottom up review process (in 2000 i actually reviewed my manager - a good one - now long gone from cisco). Cisco knows all the right things to do and that makes what they actually do much more heinous in my eyes.
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13 years -sweated through several years of layoffs. Finally, they found the right manager who could fire you with a smile on his face and trying to make you feel sorry for him. It hurt for a while, but, now I have quit one of my bp meds and am off the anti-depressants. Feeling much better! You want fries with that?
I spent 12 years there - from 1999-2011 when I accepted the early out - a fantastic package. Overall, Cisco took good care of me but it probably took 10 years off of my life. It's the most hectic, high-stress, place to work - bar none. The good ole days of doing more with less are gone. Now, it's all about doing a ridiculously amount more with a ridiculously amount less. Everyone I know who still works there hates it and wants to find a way out.
Is it Cisco in general or is it specific business units? I've met people at Cisco who seem relatively happy. Cisco seems to have some good programs in place for their employees. It seems like some part of the company wants to be a good company.
I used to work in a god awful business unit at Cisco but it is deemed quite strategically important by the execs. The product is mediocre at best and will require lots of support. That said, it seems that enterprise software seems to work this way in general. The unit I work in is one of the worst run Engineering groups I've ever worked in yet they plod along facing no recriminations from the top. It's all back slapping and self congratulations at the manager level while the lower tier looks on in disbelief. There is no desire to build innovation out of the ranks. It's more like the VP's are at work staking out their fiefdoms. It seems the top Tier in the company willingly looks away.
Couldn't agree more. The culture at Cisco has become bad.
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