Cisco Systems Reviews in Raleigh-Durham, NC Area

Pros

Salary and benefit package was good
Excellent learning opportunities
Plenty of job opportunities to move around the business

Cons

It consumes most employees 24x7
Channel conflict in the sales organization
Arrogance
Mid-level management was poor

Pros

Ok Company. Big, stable, but not great for career progress.

Cons

Very unfair in promotions. Too much favoritism. Not much growth in RTP

Advice to Senior Management

Reduce the favoritism

Pros

You set your own hours, no hassles from management. You are empowered to do what is best for the company.

Cons

Budget cuts and layoffs effect the ability to do your job right by wanting more with less resources.

Advice to Senior Management

Management is great but John needs to think deeper about cutting people. When times are good they hire like crazy but when times turn south they do lay-offs.

Try doing what you need with what you have in place of hiring new resources.

Don't let finance run the company. They know nothing about what it takes to develop equipment.

Pros

Nice working environment and well compensated package

Cons

Large and top-heavy management structure

Advice to Senior Management

Reduce mid management layers

Pros

The best reason to work at Cisco is a challenging, supportive and flexible enviroment.

Cons

If you are afraid of hard work and rising to a challenge, then I wouldn't suggest Cisco to you.

Pros

The amount of information available internally to facilitate personal growth as a network engineer is amazing. Cisco will foot the bill , provide resources internally for training, and recognition for for CCIE certification. Additionally, you'll have the advantage of being able to work with some of the best engineers in networking within the entire industry and you'll be challenged to excel. There aren't many opportunities in the entire country similar to working here.

Cons

The cost cutting and process oriented overhead have perhaps gotten a little too extreme and there's a bit of confusion as to which direction the company is headed. Small perks such as soda's in the break room and home internet connection being payed for really gave a sense that the company still had a bit of its start up flair. I think the dismantling of those programs while adding additional time consuming processes have had a detrimental effect on Cisco culture.

Advice to Senior Management

The management structure should be rearranged so there aren't multiple layers between engineers and senior managers. A concrete vision needs to be communicated down the development ranks so everyone is in lockstep with corporate goals. Additionally, increased investment needs to be made in development and QA. The sales force is focused and does an excellent job competing and winning, but the engineering side of the business seems to have stalled.

Pros

Fantastic talent that I work with every day; visionary leadership team that has been on the forefront of the industry for 2 decades; very nice compensation; great opportunity to advance, but you have to earn it!

Cons

Internal competition is tough becuase there is so much talent here. Some of the "old guard" need to move on but are locked in due to the high compensation.

Pros

Skillled workers. Great collaboration. Onsite gym.

Cons

If you are not located at the company headquarters, promotions are rare.

Pros

Flexible, good work/life balance, interesting work. The benefits at Cisco were great, plenty of paid vacation, and even had a very nice gym right on the campus. The managers allowed you to work independently as well.

Cons

There weren't too many cons about working there. The company is huge, so it felt like it was difficult to work your way up to higher management, but I wasn't there for very long so maybe it would have been.

Advice to Senior Management

They should just keep doing what they're doing. I loved being there and would certainly recommend to any of my friends that they work there.

Pros

Cisco is one of the best places that I've ever worked. Even among other IT companies such as SAS and Google, I think Cisco stands out as one of the best. (Okay, Google was really good too, and possibly cooler, but I still say Cisco is better.)

Why? I can sum it up in one word: culture. The people here are amazing, and always willing to help you out and help you grow in your career. I've never loved the place and people I work with more. It's also a very good place to build a career, with a lot of lateral movement within the company. And if you're willing to work at it there is a lot of opportunity for advancement as well. Just be prepared to work harder than anyone else if you want it.

Cons

The work/life balance is a little skewed towards the work side. But they have seminars on just this topic. It's not as crazy as Google, but I do spend more than 40 hours a week at work fairly often. Luckily Cisco allows you to work from home, so you're not stuck in the office the entire time.

Advice to Senior Management

My advice to management is to continue what you're doing! Cisco is making amazing progress and is still an industry leader nearly every time they enter the market. Though I would suggest spending more time on making the three architectures more accessible to the common public. Marketing buzzwords aren't the best way to sell a solution.