Cisco Systems Reviews in Raleigh-Durham, NC Area

Pros

- Stable job. Having a job is a good thing

Cons

- Exploitation
- no family life

Advice to Senior Management

- get rid of two tiers of management

Pros

Great culture; technology that is superior to most other IT companies; great transparency with leaders to share what is going on within the company; and people that care.

Cons

large hierarchy--opportunity to advance and unclear from organization to organization. Sometimes appears it's not what you do, but who you know.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue doing what you are doing!

Pros

Great work/life flexibility
Great technology
Great diversity in the workplace

Cons

Difficulty in understanding career advancement from org to org.

Advice to Senior Management

Demystify the promotion process for employees.

Pros

- flexible work hours
- allowed to take time off as necessary to handle personal matters

Cons

- Very limited career advancement, if you're not willing to self promote yourself year round, then you can forget promotions or salary increases. Even if you do promote yourself year round, you can still forget about a salary increase. Don't even mention stock options/rsu's, those are reserved mainly for execs.

- Any perks that we used to have mostly have been eliminated. We still get free coffee and hot tea.
- Health benefits are being cut back yearly it seems.
- US engineering jobs are being outsourced to china and india on an ongoing basis. Coupled with the lack of career advancement, this creates a huge moral problem.
- Ridiculous work hours expected. It used to be somewhat worth it to work long hours when there were stock options and salary increases. Now, I find myself and others working less and less after hours. And any overtime hours worked are mostly unrewarded. It's not uncommon to work day and night for several weeks and receive a $500 cap award if you're lucky. Sometimes, it's $0.
- middle management is horrible. Mostly a bunch of politicians only worried about protecting their kingdoms.
- end result of all of the above is that it is taking longer and longer for projects to get out the door and the product quality is terrible.

Advice to Senior Management

none, it's nothing they don't already know about and have done nothing about in the past.

Pros

Good balance between family life and work
Lots of smart folks, but management inertia makes them loose their enthusiastic and innovative traits.
If you do good work that gives visibility to your management, you do get recognition, but dont expect raise or promotions
Good place to be if you want to cruise by with no promotions and raises.

Cons

Growth is very slow, unless you are under a manager you understands your potential and can utilize your career goals to BU goals and leverage to grow himself.

Advice to Senior Management

Cut down on the upper management, lot of folks at the higher management are just sitting idle and reaping salaries for just twiddling their thumbs

Chambers is completely unaware of what is happening to the grunts of the company.

Pros

Health benefits
vacation and flex time is good
Nice cafeteria and office buildings
Gym on-site with trainers and nice equipment
Nice campus for walking

Cons

Working beyond reason - nights, weekends, etc so basically your pay isn't that great when spread out over all the hours. Better off to take a fun job and work nights somewhere. This is a very stressful and aggressive work environment. Politics reign supreme and it is not a fun place to work. Too much stress and management unable to respond appropriately. Pigeonholing and promotions based more on friendships/nationality then qualifications. A dead end opportunity for the vase majority. The company has changed so much - not the same Cisco it use to be.

Advice to Senior Management

Doesn't matter - once a company starts down this path it never goes back. Plus current RTP management doesn't take advice. It is not in their culture to do so.

Pros

flex work environment is available

Cons

too many indians are there

Advice to Senior Management

make regular pay hiks

Pros

Overall company stability
Good name recognition
Most employees are smarter than average and work like dogs
Stock purchase plan & overall benefits
Fast computer network with lots of bandwidth :-)
Great for middle-aged white men who like politics
Seldom fires people for poor performance
Flexibility to work from home
John Chambers is a great motivator and provides upbeat, consistent leadership
Wish I could say the same for most other leaders

Cons

Insane pace - all Cisco all the time - expect you to be online 24/7
Only high-level execs are promoted (I've had 5 lateral moves in 10+ years)
Jobs can end without warning (due to "limited restructuring") and no one will help you find another
Absolutely no help with career planning or employee advocacy - HR is worthless
Few women in leadership positions and most of those aren't home-grown
All that matters is managing up
Too many meetings...no time to get real work done
Too much bloated terminology like "market adjacencies" instead of simply "priorities"
Must fly coach even on long flights
If you're not in San Jose (HQ), you don't exist

Advice to Senior Management

Grow more leaders from within rather than constantly hiring execs from companies like HP. Promote strong performers. Reward loyalty. Focus on promoting people outside of San Jose. Hire career coaches to place people in the right roles and leverage their talents. Have fewer meetings. Reward leaders based on employee satisfaction, not just customer satisfaction. Let people fly business class on long flights. Stop referring to the Cisco "family." It's insulting. Stop freezing salary increases and promotions.

Pros

great place to see how cisco operates from the inside.

Cons

third rate employees, serving the blue bade aristocracy.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't contract out your essential helpdesk. Your employees desperately need computer skills and would be lost without GTRC.

Pros

-Work from home
-Good training available if you can find the time to take it
-Good support of job transitions/rotations
-Complex environment where you can learn a lot

Cons

-Pay is not that great, especially when bonuses aren't paid out
-Promotions take way too long to get
-Long work hours, schedule can be unpredictable, and hours can be odd as you are usually working with a global team

Advice to Senior Management

-Focus on promoting the good people that have been around. It is extremely frustrating to see people from the outside getting hired above your level and they end up not being very good. This seems to be diluting the talent pool at Cisco and persuading good people to leave Cisco
-Adjust salaries to reflect the talent and work that Cisco employees put in. Everyone was sold on stock options and big bonuses for lower salaries when they came in. Now with no options and and bonuses paid out at a lower %'s or not at all, salaries need to be adjusted or the talent will keep flowing out of Cisco.