Going to be graduating college in a year and was offered a position on the San Jose TAC team (no specific team known yet). I was curious if anyone knows of layoffs in the TS sector as well as where you think the future of TS is going. Are these SJ TAC jobs going to be sent off to less expensive sites (RTP, Bangalore, TX, etc)? What is the health of TS in general? Supposedly services is pulling in a lot of money, but is that TAC or more NCE? For those who have experience in TAC, what is the progression of your career? Is TAC a dead end due to being pigeon holed into only Cisco technologies? Your input is much appreciated.
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Original poster of this thread here. First and foremost I want to thank everyone who gave their feedback, your time and efforts are much appreciated. Just a couple additional questions for those of you who were in TAC.
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For those of you who moved to a different position outside Cisco, how did the TAC experience benefit you (if at all)?
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Do companies see having TAC in your tool belt as a positive thing?
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In what companies and roles have you moved on to (I understand if you do not feel comfortable giving this information due to potentially identifying yourself)?
Thank you!
Apply for a support job at Arista I did after many years at Cisco and am much happier. The code works, management is great and interaction with the software team is seemless. Do yourself a favor go Arista....
Why is it so understaffed? It has really good margins. You answered your own question. And if the margins slip a fraction, then a head must be lopped to restore it.
I took 3 rotations through the TAC and spent probably 6 years there total. What I never understood and maybe someone can enlighten me is why it the TAC always so chronically understaffed? There was always more work than could be reasonably be expected to get done. Customer's must suffer from this. The turnover rate is huge and thus all of the acquired knowledge gets flushed on a regular basis. Is it because management figures a person will only work in the TAC for a short period of time and they want to get the most of them while they are there or what? I never understood it. The TAC has really good margins from what I understand
TAC requires a certain type of personality and if you don't have it, then don't bother. If you are the type that takes things to heart, gets stressed easily, and do not have the ability to separate work and personal lives then do yourself a favour and steer well clear. If however that excites you and you love warzone action with P1's and P2's going off all around you then you'll love it. Unlike the soldier analogy others have spoken about on here, the big difference is soldiers are trained. You, unfortunately will not be. Customers expect you to know about everything that has a Cisco badge on it. It's survival of the fittest in TAC. Run with the wild horses for a while but leave before it changes you too much!
I was the previous poster on how harsh TAC is. That's how I viewed it. TAC is bootcamp. Everyone in Cisco should go through it. I'd chuckle to myself anytime a customer would cuss me out, I would simply guide them to a fix. After a fix they'd turn around and be your best friend. It isn't for the timid or weak. TAC managers aren't off the hook either. My manager got cussed out by customers every week too. It's fast-pace and high stress. Come in, but don't stay long.
I posted the previous post saying that the TAC is a good place to start your career. The post about how badly you are treated in the TAC is accurate as well. It is a hell hole sort of like Marine boot camp. Good place to start but don't stay too long.
Here is my experience in TAC. Management ran the team badly. They understaffed us during BIC where there were more Sev 1s than available engineers. They didn't give us backlog days so our backlogs were on the unmanageable side. Everyday was a huge stress ball because of the huge backlog and the additional stream of cases you were about to add to it. They gave us a hard time about wanting a lunch break. We didn't receive training and were supporting Cisco-specific technology whose product knowledge didn't scale outside Cisco. Literally they could have hired someone off the street, put them in a cubicle, give them no training and tell them to pick up every P1 and P2 case that comes into the queue. This is exactly what they were doing. It was learn by fire. Our TAC managers openly yelled and cussed out engineers in the cubicles and even cussed out customers while not on mute. It was a wonderful experience and I don't regret leaving. I wasn't LR'd from TAC, but TAC is not immune to layoffs. One of my buddies was LR'd and he was top notch. They treated us like trash and TAC engineers left because of it.
If the money is right, TAC is a good place to start your Cisco career. If its just a job, get in and get out. TAC work is rewarding but hard.
There will always be TAC work in SJ, RTP and India. Support follows the sun.
From my experience the TAC has been generally immune to layoffs. I haven't worked there for several years so my knowledge may be dated. The TAC is the best place IMHO to start your career. You will learn more there in a year than you would in five year someplace else. On some teams you may only learn Cisco specific skills but on others you will learn things that apply industry wide. You probably shouldn't spend more than a couple of years in the TAC before looking to move on. You probably won't want to if it is still the madhouse it was when I was there.