There are three groups of people at Cisco. 1.) Upper management, with what looks like no vision except to repeat the mantra that cutting costs means hiring twenty H1B workers per manager. (Ref: see the org chart published by B. Reese a few years... — read more 

!/usr/bin/environment downhill try { if { UPPER_MANAGEMENT == NO_CLUE; largePercentEmployees == H1B_workers } then { ManagersConcern < customerCareAndProfessionalism; } else { gettingMoreKickbackFromRecruiters(); catch { void... — read more 

Cisco used to look towards improving employees that were under performing. Now it's easier to just lay them off rather than put them on PIP. Ever notice that VPs aren't LRd or PIPd? They're just moved to a new group and they get to keep their $300k+... — read more 

My manager acted very strange on Friday. He avoided looking and talking at me and one more guy in our team. He was visibly distressed. He's a relatively new to management, and is generally OK guy, who so far treated as fair. So I wonder - can it be... — read more 

Usually Cisco quarterly revenue hovers around 12 Billion USD but last few quarters has lost lot of market shares to rivals means we have going to generate less revenue. Talk in the street is Cisco will generate Revenue less than 10 Billion USD means... — read more 

what is the future of engineers in TAC ?

Is it solely upon my immediate manager to decide? Or does it involve director? other managers under my director? Do salary hikes follow same process like grades?

Some products are not selling. Other products become obsolete after some time. New products come to being. They require new techniques and different skill sets. A company trying to survive in the IT world needs to lay off teams and re-invent itself... — read more 

Only 9 in SJ... http://www.edd.ca.gov/jobs_and_training/warn/WARN_Report_for_7-1-2017_to_08-10-2017.pdf

Fact is, there will be zero redundancies as that would create undo stress for those impacted and those left behind. At present, The Cisco Response Appropriately & Passionately team (aka CRAP, a cross-functional team spanning HR, Workplace Resources... — read more 

I hope everyone has a backup plan in place. Layoffs will be announced on 16th August on the earnings call. 7k is the rumour.

There's a lot of talk here about getting "zero bonus" this year. Does anyone have a list of say the last 5 years of the year end bonus that was paid out?

Hey Guys After 16 years of below average career in Cisco, today VP informed in meeting that whole team is getting LR ed. Worked mostly in Telecom domain for all these years, I am out of Job staring at Mortgage, Kids and myself in mirror. I did all... — read more 

Anybody know why Cisco spent millions on remodeling the buildings yet forgot to remodel the restrooms?

Google trends is a great service often overlooked. Its interesting to see how Cisco's future has been changing all these years - try adding or removing other search terms such as Huawei, Apple, Salesforce, UCS, webex etc... — read more 

Bought three companies and still have yet to get a revenue stream of any size. All the execs are still around (given more funding or moved back to IT). They're still entrenched at Telstra and haven't figured out how to back out of it. Old Chuck made... — read more 

Anybody knows if Viptela acquisition will result in layoffs of any of the Cisco staff? Usually there is at least some pruning during consolidation. The entire Viptela team will join Cisco's Enterprise Routing team, so I wonder if that will have any... — read more 

Although Cisco is struggling to sustain it's high margin hardware business model, it's neighbor down the street seems to be crushing it despite Cisco's legal shenanigans. It's good for customers to have competitive options... — read more 

Heard that final decisions are taking regarding UCS. Not sure why Cisco wants to close down on its hardware business and move only to software model. Sept-Oct will be a turmoil period ! Very late to market in cloud strategy.

A past manager's experience: the process is incompetent by design (and if you think about it, perhaps by necessity.) The decisions are made at VP or Director level, depending who holds the budget, and there is a requirement for minimum information... — read more 

Cisco India President Dinesh Malkani quits Dinesh was instrumental in securing some of the big digitisation deals in India, what could have influenced him to quit..?? any inside birdie stories...? He had good relationship and rapport with the... — read more 

As an engineer, I think one of the problems with UCS is engineering. The software release was NEVER on time. Always lots of issues in the last minute. It gets delayed for a couple of months every single time. No accountability. Nobody gets blamed or... — read more 

Last year they were announced on 15th August. Any view on if it'll be another big one this year?

What are the chances of surviving a pip here at Cisco?

Today, Cisco is a cube farm of PowerPoint soldiers run by managers who measure their success by how much money they waste. On top of that equation for disaster, over the last decade, the company allowed a plethora of strangulating processes to govern... — read more 

It's 8am on Friday and i've been contacted by 10 people that are in the Cloud (the old intercloud group) and UCS BUs. Bloodbath today... I would bet the VPs that run those teams are going to get fat bonuses come September. Not sure how they are... — read more 

I have seen several people post that a few were laid off today. This seems to be a pattern lately. Let go of a few people here, a few more there, than wait a few days...rinse and repeat. Should we all be worried that this is their way of avoiding... — read more 

Sad news. Regrettably, mismanagement is the norm rather than the exception in modern business. (GM, Ford, Chrysler, Bear Sterns, Bethlehem Steel, and a whole boat load of other industry giants mismanaged themselves to the very brink of bankruptcy or... — read more 

The only reason I have stuck around the last year was because I want the package. I have been here 8 years which is 2 years longer then I have ever been somewhere before. 20 years in this industry, took this job as a red badge and was converted 6... — read more 

I can confirm a small bunch of long term high performers from technical services san jose were laid off today. A relative called upset because his boss and many teammates were let go. He was moved to a new supervisor. He was shocked and said it was... — read more 

Past/Current management chime in! Do you get to see the list before hand? if so how long before, I want to correlate my current neglect by management with what they already know.

I want to get laid off because I have an offer from mid August. I have not been working much and have been put on a PIP. Does this increase my chances of getting laid off? My cut off for resigning is 21 August. Is there anything else short of... — read more 

On top of the simply "through the looking glass" split in SP initiated by Y, the hits keep on coming. Another SP announcement of yet another layer added to exec ranks - that makes 2 in about 6 months. It seems that while we lay off PM's and TME's we... — read more 

I was a top performer in my team – not by my own account but repeated by my management team during my years prior. About a year ago I developed health conditions that I needed to address and asked to be able to work remote 3 days a week. I was denied... — read more 

After all these years I dislike Cisco so much that I really hope there will be yet another massive layoff. That would help me to continue disliking Cisco. I understand that affected people will think I'm a jerk. That's what Cisco made me ... :-/

Wondering how the last Beat went before quarter-end announcement. I'm already out but I'm curious about this dog-n-pony show. Always found The Beat to be a somewhat depressing rah-rah session. Any LR discussion?

The yearly circus has begun and the first set of people have been notified. Long live Chuck...

Can we pinpoint a precise date for this year's August/September layoff based on dates from the past?

(1) you are 10 years at Cisco and still not a tech lead. From a business point of view, it might make sense to replace you with a younger engineer and give him a chance to succeed. (2) you are 10 years at Cisco, a tech lead but you don't "lead". From... — read more 

With one week to go, it looks like we're set for quite a setback this year. Everyone is blaming Brexit, but I don't believe we've ever seen the start of the UK decline from that. If I look back on this year, I think the majority of the blame has to... — read more