Pros

The best part of working at Cisco has been my interactions with my colleagues. There are some very bright people there that still try to make the best product they possibly can.

Cons

Management. Cisco management used to be comprised of the best and brightest of the industry. They used to have a very technical background and were able to make sure that "stuff" got done right.

Cisco is now a shining example of the Peter principle run amok. There are typically seven to nine layers of management above each employee. It is impossible to have that much management and have all of them be competent. From a worker's perspective, it appears that management spends half the year on evaluations and the other half messing up the work that you're trying to get done. To add insult to injury you will have the pleasure of reading mass mailings announcing the promotion of directors and VPs while trying to get your work done in the middle of a two year hiring freeze.

Evaluations are very political and emphasize work that may have been done as much as a year ago, which is an eternity for a tech company. While your individual performance is graded through a performance review, your actual score is determined through a secret ranking of all persons in the same job level within your division. It does not take a genius to realize that it is the sycophants that get ranked highest while those that cause a fuss over quality and process get ranked at the bottom. At Cisco, it pays to be quiet about quality issues and to make sure all of your process-related check boxes are checked.

Opportunity for advancement has evaporated over the past five years. I've seen too many lower level employees left to languish at low pay grades while they've done twice the work of their higher level colleagues all because they had the bad luck of not getting the promotions while they were still being given out many years ago.

Advice to Senior Management

If you have a senior manager reporting to a director reporting to another director reporting to a VP to a VP to an executive VP, there just might be something wrong with your organization. While it is important to have a strong management system, it is wrong to dedicate so much of Cisco's resources to those that don't actually produce anything. We sell networking equipment, software, services, and support, not policies. If there were a way to productize the infinite number of policies and procedures coming down from above, I'm certain Cisco's stock price would double.