Cisco Systems Reviews in San Jose, CA Area

Pros

Great People and collaborative spirit

Cons

Removing layers creates limited career advancement opportunities

Pros

Cisco has growth potential.
Senior leadership is effective.
Company culture is healthy.

Cons

recognition is not timely
reward is below average.

Pros

Good work life balance. Good source of knowledge.

Cons

Salary lower that comparable positions in other companies.

Advice to Senior Management

Be focused on core competencies.

Pros

Excellent work culture
Flex Time, work from remote locations
Benefits are good
Bonuses are well paid out
Team spirit and camaraderie is high

Cons

Limited Growth Opportunities
Talent Recognition is dependent on the leading manager
Promotions are hard to come by
No clear picture of career growth track

Advice to Senior Management

Build talent from the inside
Do not look for external media personalities to enhance the company executive management profile
Focus on Services

Pros

Great opportunities to work closely with strong engineers
Plenty of autonomy
Access to great people, tools, and resources
Exposure to high profile projects

Cons

Not as fun as it used to be.
You might be able to make more money elsewhere
Hard driving culture.

Pros

diversity in opportunities to learn and develop skills, empowerment of mid level management, work-life balance is valued and encouraged

Cons

Too large to effectively influence, take long time to change, easy to loose focus

Pros

Pockets of excellent work. Wish it is across the company.

Cons

Culture of promoting talkers than doers

Advice to Senior Management

Value potential and capability than mere talk. Peel and know the difference.

Pros

Lots of opportunities to learn and grow
Benefit packages are pretty good in general
Competitive salary

Cons

Company is too big, makes it difficult to feel your contribution make a difference
Stock performance has been lousy for a decade and management does not seems to acknowledge it is a problem

Advice to Senior Management

John Chambers always paint a rosy picture to the employees, and blames company performance problems on unforeseeable external factors, may be it its time to come clean and acknowledge failure or mis-steps

Pros

It feels great when you leave.

Cons

Managers are sweatshopping engineers trying to compete not with the marketplace but instead with other groups doing the same exact thing. What a huge waste. Being forced to work late and weekends is awful, and if you do manage to get your own work done during " normal" hours you still have to come in weekends "for the team". Apparently you dont have enough to do if you are getting your job done during the week. After all that, no raise and no bonuses for me. So I left, got 2 offers in three days elsewhere and have never been happier.

Advice to Senior Management

Do your jobs and fire half the directors. Stop the waste of time racing teams against each other. And stop sweatshopping. Only the h1bs are your feudal serfs.

Pros

great to work for a market leader. Cisco has regained its competitive nature and is respected by its customers and partners.

Cons

Cisco has grown big and slow. Too much of personal agendas with senior management which creates barriers for cross functional collaboration

Advice to Senior Management

Measure your leadership team on how well they collaborate with other groups and functions. Moving leaders around in the organization will create a better understanding on how to build synergies