Pros

able to work remotely - telecommuting even in different countries, ability to change job within company, stable company even in bad economy - large product portfolio

Cons

lower salary than competitors, culture differs for each BU - some BUs provide boring work, do just process, some are very fast moving (can burn you out)

Advice to Senior Management

this is an advice to middle management of one particular BU - communicate better with your engineers, let them at least voice an opinion on product implementation

Pros

Large company, many products, lots of opportunities and innovation. You could easily spend a lifetime at Cisco and never run out of challenges.

Cons

Product teams have a lot of leeway and don't necessarily hire designers. This can lead to an uncoordinated mass of multiple design directions, many driven by non-designers, throughout the company. More strength should be given to central design teams, and more teams should hire designers.

Advice to Senior Management

User experience is beginning to take hold at Cisco, but there is still more of an emphasis on grassroots efforts than coordinated and unified design systems with executive support. Give the centralized user experience teams more of an enforcement hammer if you expect them to collaborate with the rest of the company to find innovative solutions.

Pros

The company and its employees produce incrediable solutions/products and work.

Cons

The "highly matrixed" manangement culture is exhausting. Everyone's an indian chief ... they either think they are or deserve to be and many times the real decision makers sit back and don't respond. It's difficult to manange a company entirely by committee. Nothing moves at lightening speed and if it does someone will object ... sort of like Congress - eh?

Advice to Senior Management

Read Cons comment - twice!

Pros

Good place to work in US

Cons

Very big company, so really work hard to grow .
Pay is on par with any major company in US

Advice to Senior Management

Think before hiring new folks
Also make the company more agile.
It is very had to get things down with so many layers

Pros

Good company name on your resume, recruiters will try to snatch you up if you start looking for another job outside the company.
Engineers know their stuff well
Lots of perks (CAP awards for a project well done, good onsite cafeteria, gym, etc)
Company has many business units covering many technology areas

Cons

sweat shop: expect 70+ hours of work regularly if you are an engineer.
high pressure: not only do you have to put in long hour, it is a high pressure environment. Every one is pressuring everyone else to get the work done, leading to a very nasty environment and teamwork suffers a lot. People just do not have time to help others unless it is something that is "visible" by their management.
Company frugality policy means you do not have the resources (equipment) to actually do the work expected of you. People spend a lot of wasted time fighting over equipment and making do with prototype that do not work.

Advice to Senior Management

A sense of ownership does not come from stock options, it comes from people having more control over their work. Give your employees more control over their work.

Pros

1. The Name "Cisco" on your resume.
2. Get experience of working with Global Teams across the world.
3. Being in Silicon Valley.

Cons

1. Absolutely non-transparent management.especially management in NSSTG.
2. In the downturn economy, upper management just wants to see money on the balance sheet. So each business unit competes with other business units within Cisco resulting in bloodbath of project cancellations and fights for who is best with disregard to innovation with collaboration. Funny thing every group claims or assumes what they are doing is the cutting edge.
3. Zero or Negative chance of any sort of promotion or salary raise or career development changes for Software Engineers regardless of their current grade. Reason: The economy. Always how much ever an employee performs, even if he gets excellent ratings in the performance review, the blame is put on the economy for no raises, promotions - and the a big FAT statement is thrown: "You better be happy that you still have a job, other are much worse than you...."
4. Extreme back stabbing within employees.
5. Regional politics - Indians promoting Indians buddies, Chinese promoting Chinese buddies etc, if at all some promotion happens.
6. Extremely and Stupidly frugal. Productivity increasing equipment purchases (even $50 valued) not approved by first line mangers. Absolutely no training (even internal) is approved for engineers. So skills will become absolutely extinct for engineers.
6. Extremely incompetent first line managers - several long timers who just don't care or have the power anymore to fight for their groups visibility in the upper management and just worried about their fat 401ks and bonuses.
7. Big time ass-kissing by first line managers to their upper levels and so on. In the recent rounds of layoffs (called limited restructuring) not a single manager got affected. The manager is always safe. Only the employees were given pink slips.

Of course things were good 1.5 years ago when economy was good - if they were this worse when the economy was good, people would just move to other companies. Since people don't have much jobs on the market now and are basically stuck with Cisco, Cisco takes employees for a ride - particularly the engineers in grade 6, 8 etc.

Advice to Senior Management

Be Transparent. Don't be extremely frugal. Try to spend some money to keep the employee morale up. Reward good employees. Don't just reward only executives and cut all the benefits, raise and promotions of all the other employees, because when the economy is good, 30 - 40% will just jump the ship.

Pros

great people, great technology, ability to move into other areas, industry leader, dominates most markets, always evolving, virtual environment, great benefits, respect for people.

Cons

long hours, lots of con-calls, never ending e-mails, must catch-up on weekends. Pressure to perform, bottom 10% is managed out regularly, stock options are given less frequently

Advice to Senior Management

managment in general is doing a very effective job, message comes from the top and Cisco has a very pervasive culture that all employees benefit from. communication is top of mind and Cisco managers are driven but usually very fair.

Pros

Even though financial conditions are tough, people at Cisco seem to maintain a sunny outlook. It's not perfect, but there are many, many worse places to work. Compensation is not bad and the move to RSUs instead of options means that at least they are worth something.

Cons

Long hours, extensive travel....sales dominates (have a good quarter and you are a hero...even if you treat people like dirt). Can result in a macho culture

Advice to Senior Management

Focus more on the long term...less emphasis on and reward for the current quarter.

Pros

great talent
great benefits
great effort in building technology solutions

Cons

HR is the worst organization at Cisco.
HR leaders talks the talk and punishes those who walk the talk
HR leadership too often is arrogant in taking liberty with undermining leaders who are not political
HR disables the business' success because they are only interested in their survival
HR has limited concept of true leadership and are political beasts looking to outshine one another
HR is clueless when it comes to understaning human behavior and translating it opportunities to lift up morale, productivity and overall employee engagement

Advice to Senior Management

Fire HR leaders who cannot lead people
Reward HR staff that truly bring value to the organization, especially if they have mitagated risks created by the HR Cisco environment.
Ensure HR avoids risks by actually treating people with respect and valuing common sense

Pros

-Great pay with flexible hours and paid vacation time
-Awesome people who know what they are doing
-Interesting Work
-Awesome location
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Cons

-Code base takes some getting used to.
-Large complex with many different buildings can make it difficult to find the people you need to talk with in person

Advice to Senior Management

My intern experience was absolutely great. Definitely well organized and they really made me feel like I was part of the team.