Cisco Systems Reviews

Pros

Flexible environment and great place to work if you want to balance family and work. Lots of project to work on and good bonus.

Cons

promotions- FORGET IT you will not get it. performance review does not have any effect on promotion. Salary raise- Forget it

Pros

Flexible work environment; work from home
Lots of employment opportunities / chances to move around the company

Cons

Job satisfaction really depends on who you work for, what dept you're in
The new open workspace is terrible
Zero help for commuters
Working from home means sacrificing your career
Base salaries are laughable; perks benefits and total comp dwindeling
Re-orgs are status quo
The company does not do enough to retain top talent

Advice to Senior Management

Start looking out for the little guy again.
Ensure Cisco remains competitive; keep up with the perks offered by other companies
Telecommunications has gone overboard. Tavel is an important perk and vital to good international communications and team work.

Pros

Very flexible work culture.
Company supports higher education.
Stable company.

Cons

Career Growth is slow.
Rewards are not attractive enough to hold people.
Work culture lacks FUN and creativity.

Pros

Highly complex and technically challenging product mix. World class products being designed and shipped to customers. Company has respect for its employees and has a competitive salary and benefits package.

Cons

Very large company with low attrition which results in very few career progression opportunities. Losing "coolness" factor perhaps to Google/Facebook/Apple and the like in competition for new talent.

Advice to Senior Management

There may be too many employees in the company - there is a perception that a lot of people are not pulling their weight...

Pros

+ It's a great work place which provides a great platform to learn a host of technologies
+ Provides good balance between work and personal life
+ Allows for exploring opportunities within the company

Cons

+ The pace of innovation is slowing down
+ Organizations could be leaner
+ Room for improvement for Collaboration within the company

Advice to Senior Management

+ Make people more accountable for their actions
+ "Rewards for performance" philosophy could be better managed
+ Internal tools could be improved

Pros

Stable company, decent benefits, company gives back to the community, very ethical

Cons

too many hours required to be successful, lacking work/life balance, big company politics. Overly structured big company policies re: flexible work location, forced rankings, etc.

Advice to Senior Management

Empower your leaders to manage their employees, practice the flexible work and location vision you preach and sell to customers. Stop forced rankings which are proven to undermine success.

Pros

Co-workers were great. Very little in the way of office politics among non-managerial co-workers. Work environment was excellent, and I generally had all the equipment I needed. Salary was the on the high end. If you're fortunate to land in a group doing new development and be assigned that work, then the work can be very exciting.

Cons

In the video group I was in, the low level management was in constant flux, so there was no loyalty to direct reports. Sometimes as many as 3 managers telling a team of 2 engineers what to do. While there was a high level of technical skill and work ethic among managers, their managerial people skills were terrible. Software engineers treated more as cogs than people. Large influx of contractors added to this feeling. John Chambers preaches the "Cisco is family" ethic... I saw no evidence of it here. While I had occasional times of good work, most of work was boring... fixing or triaging bugs mainly. I know a co-worker still working there, one of the sharpest engineers I know, have his project cancelled. He's now talking of leaving in a couple of years. When I was there, the video group was constantly being reorganized. There is some opportunity to move around, but you're just as likely to get stuck in a dead-end job. I was very happy to leave this company.

Advice to Senior Management

Teach you managers to respect and treat engineers as people. Create and enfore polocies that allow engineers greater opportunity to move to different groups.

Pros

Good place to learn computer networking.
Lots of choices in terms of business groups to work for.
Good benefits.
Very Employee friendly

Cons

Company needs to re-invent
too many management layers..
Not efficient.
Stock aren't doing well
Not clear on the future evolution of the company.

Pros

A lot of new products and technologies are being introduced on a yearly basis

Cons

Limited growth for country positions

Pros

The compensation is above par
In general you work with bright and motivated people
The flexibility you have (ability to work from home)

Cons

Promotions to executive level seem to be few and far between
People development is lacking (you're on your own for the most part)