Cisco Systems Reviews in San Jose, CA Area

Pros

Great, awesome, hard-to-beat health benefits. This is not a sell if you are single, young and fit, but great family support and campus life works well.

Cons

Small cog in a small team as part of a large team in some business unit whose name changes so regularly that one forgets and doesnt care.

Sometimes management dont trust engineers!

Advice to Senior Management

Engineers can do a great job if permitted and promoted!

Pros

good benefits and relax work culture

Cons

big company limited career growth

Pros

Products are good and challenging for development. Company has good Intellectual Property. Feels good to develop a product which will be quickly deployed by customers.

Cons

Company is very big. No one has any time to talk to colleagues. Not much fun. Its hard to build any friendships with colleagues.

Advice to Senior Management

Collaboration between Business Units is very poor. Too many layers between CEO and the employees. There are cases where employee is 11 levels below the CEO. VP- reports to VP who in turn reports SVP who reports to another SVP and so on. It seems wasteful.

Pros

Work-Life balance, Fair compensation, Chance for success without constantly busting your ass. Good performance review structure. Chance to learn about many areas of the business (subject matter expertise) and new skillsets

Cons

Very complex organizations with constantly changing vision & goals. Long cycle times to deliver on most projects. Many fundamental architectural challenges which require many go-rounds to address

Advice to Senior Management

Simplify

Pros

Flexible working. Lots of knowledge to be learned. People are respectful and smart

Cons

Hard to get promotion. A lot of organization changes lately, not always for the better.

Advice to Senior Management

Hard to get promotion. A lot of organization changes lately, not always for the better.

Pros

Large Company, Friendly Workers, The Internet is growing and so is Cisco's role in the world

Cons

The bottom five percent of employes are let go during cut times.

Advice to Senior Management

I really enjoyed the Bagel meetings we had every friday that helped keep workers informed.

Pros

Flexible work schedules, good benefits, smart people, comfortable pace

Cons

Can be long hours, especially working with overseas partners, career growth can be stunted, a lot of "fire drill"

Pros

Huge opportunity for the company translates into many interesting possibilities for future projects. The feeling inside the company is still positive.

Cons

Cisco has become a very large company in many ways that leave some people with feelings that the management is impersonal.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue innovating into new technologies, don't stand on the past successes. Market domination comes from being early into a market that few others see or understand.

Pros

Good products and market share

Cons

High Pressure in sales to overachieve

Advice to Senior Management

Keep listening to the feedback

Pros

Emphasis on collaboration
Opportunities to build skills
Work location flexibility (very supportive of telecommuting and working from wherever you want)

Cons

Huge company and sometimes difficult to get things done in a timely manner
Will take your soul if you aren't careful

Advice to Senior Management

Acountability...accountability....accountability