Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

Most of " Principal" and "Distinguished" engineers started in 1995-98 period and have grown within 2-3 years to these positions

Companies that can maintain fairly high retention rates without giving raises or titles aren't going to give out raises or titles. An executive saying this out loud at my first company caused half the engineering staff to walk. Welcome to capitalism.

If you want a fast track career seek critical roles on critical projects with competent leadership (typically a big company trifecta of failure) where you can quickly grow what you can contribute. If you have to change jobs to have your compensation match your contribution you must be willing to do so. As much as people seek titles they're only meaningful at weak companies where they dictate a salary range and what you may do on a project. At a good small company you can do anything although only the rarest of companies will provide an immediate compensation correction when that correction is significant.

As for Cisco, it seems completely arbitrary. Yes, it can be hard to get a promotion, but most people at higher grades are many levels beyond what the Peter Principle should allow. Since it seemed worse than other large companies I've worked with I'm curious what parts of this may be due to massive growth up until 2001 where wildly incompetent people got s---ed way up the reporting chain and what parts have to do with title inflation at the companies being acquired. On the other hand I know college hires who started at Cisco well after 2001 and made Technical Leader having done nothing but small bug fixes for their entire career.

sad but true, you have to be the rabbit, scared at every turn, being long in tooth or low number is bad.

dont worry about the praise, its fleeting, just look around and be super aware, or situational awareness is only way to survive. No one has your back, its your job to bounce around and land on your feet, big mistake taking the moves and manager suffle, its the yeah, we are going to need you to move to the basement, and this is my red stapler. Worry about your look ,dress up, look busy, dont chit chat with team, look for the next job or promo, thats your job.

My story : except I was at intel and finally took "vsp". I must say every line of it is exactly what I went through for 5 years.

I feel sorry for you. I think your case is an extreme case.

My impression at Cisco: If a manager thinks you are ok, he wants to make sure you don't look for another job and so he praises you making you believe you have a future. Think of the carrot held in front of a donkey.

Check out the topic from a few days ago about "what you have to go to get promoted". I think I wrote there "visibility, visibility, visibility". But if you don't have a manager and director singing your praises, you're stuffed. This is why changing managers is the kiss of death for promotion - the clock starts again. I'm in a BU which just about abandoned promotions for the past 5-6 years, since the constant re-orgs meant no manager knew anything about their staff and wouldn't go into bat for them. Stalemate.

Perhaps， the issue you solved is not significant as you thought.

In fact, Cisco treats the talented employees much better compared with other companies. In the same time, Cisco does Not punish the employees lagged behind enough. So, it makes some employees feel not very fair.

Sounds like my story except for your age. It is the Cisco way.

I don't work at Cisco but you're story is a familiar one to anyone who has worked in corporate America these days. What you did yesterday means nothing tomorrow. This is why I try and do my best work at the end of the year, because memories are short and your manager will not know what you did in January. Your comment on "power points" and "people arent seeing your work" are typical manager responses when they have no power to reward you. People managers don't manage, guide, or help their employees' careers anymore- instead the manager is used by executive management as staff to get their work done. By the way, when you do great work, the last thing your manager wants to do is get you promoted or advertise how great you are- they are too afraid to lose you.

I remember an exec was once asked something about promotions. He answered with something along the lines of it's true that a new hire in another company might have been promoted 2-3 times in 5 years but promotions at Cisco were tied to performance and not tenure. So in other words you could work at Cisco for 5 years without any raises or promotions.

I also believe there was a meeting where another Cisco exec said something along the lines of Google employees on average had higher IQs than Cisco employees but that Cisco had better culture and culture is what's most important in a company.

Anyone remember this? Or something similar?

A common excuse the Cisco execs give in most speeches I have heard related to promotions is that career is a marathon and not a sprint :)

Any other BS statements you have heard . Please share :)

Yup that was my experience too. I spent 10 years there and I'm happy to be laid off otherwise I would've stayed another 5 years because I was too comfortable. You can't build a relationship with the new managers nowadays as they are not trained.

Managing up is not a bad thing and is an essential skill in a well-organized company. Unfortunately, when anyone at Cisco says "managing up" what they mean is "s---ing up." Totally different things.

I'm sorry to hear that. Be glad you got the entire Cisco experience out of the way at an age when you can still recover and continue your career at a better company without having to worry about ageism. PLEASE post this to Glassdoor.

@awd:

LOL! We used to keep a bingo card as a team and compare notes as to how many/how often of those excuses we got.

"Sorry, there is no budget"

Then fire your business analysts. What the hell are they doing?

"Person X is underpaid."

Persons A-Z are underpaid. Cisco used to be so proud that they only paid 70% of industry b/c it was such prestige to work there. Guess what? Everyone's getting screwed, and we're losing people because Cisco still thinks it's the only game in town. That's not a reason, Mr Manager. That's the problem.

"No one knew who you were."

Really? After I did (insert herculean result here)? Wait, isn't that your job, Mr Manager? To sell the team? To champion your people? Why am I being held back because of your incompetence?

"We're changing your manager, again"

Oh, ok. So now the next one to two years will be spent training the new guy on team operations, instead of solving problems. Cool.

"You need to be more strategic."

Ok, fine, I quit for a better paying gig where I don't have to deal with this lunacy anymore.

It sounds like you were probably in AS, correct? They stopped valuing technical skills once they created the "Solutions architect" position for "solution selling". Thank Edzard, Parvesh and friends for that.

I'm under 30 and had a similar experience,in AS, but left after I had my 4th manager in under a year. The no-nothing SDE told me to learn presentation skills instead of learning Python if I wanted "visbility"

The quality of the work you do has no significance. If management isn't looking out for you, you will be on the chopping block. And when you are constantly being moved under different managers, no one is looking out for you.

It's a shame really, because Cisco has made it clear to everyone that they don't value their people. So don't think twice about not being there anymore. Spend the prime of your career at a company that values the work you do.

@JbsPuZv-awd, yes I was informed that there was a tight budget and others were in queue for several cycles now and they took precedence. Communicated the VPs weren't technical and made it clear business acumen had more value than technical prowess.

I knew when Rebecca Jacoby started repeatedly mentioning "Managing Up" as a critical skill for those on or her team and their reports, we were doomed.

What the OP describes here is the definition of this. I would treat your desire not to engage in that worthless crap as an asset and not a detriment.

Add:

"Sorry, there is no budget for promotion this year"

let me guess you also had:

"You're too tactical, you need to be more strategic"

"I would have given you a promotion this year but there was only 1 for 30 people and person x is so underpaid"

"When I brought your promotion up at management, no one knew who you were"

getting promoted at Cisco is damn near impossible...and then one day it just happens and you did nothing, less than nothing, were twiddling your thumbs waiting for nothing to happen.