Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

Systems Architects, Systems Engineer, Technical Solutions Architect all to be renamed

In a more that must have taken 1,000s of hours of consulting from the highest paid consulting companies in the world couple with countless hours of senior SE leadership all SE will get a new title. Yes with all that is around us SE leadership feels calling everyone a Solutions Engineer is much better! What a waste of breath.

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| 4753 views | | 46 replies (last October 23, 2023) | Reply
Post ID: @OP+1p8MMY10

46 replies (most recent on top)

The executives joke behind closed doors survival in corporate america is based on "authority without accountability"

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Post ID: @6uea+1p8MMY10
Only company I know of where you can miss your numbers and still come out a director because of it. cx joke...

I remember when John Chambers (the CEO at the time) completely missed his numbers and yet he still gave himself a bonus he failed to earn. We all got to take an extra forced day of vacation along with deliverables to be worked on while burning vacation hours for nothing. It really gave context to all his speeches about accountability. Scroll through other threads here and you'll find he is still worshiped by many.

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Post ID: @6flj+1p8MMY10
We really could have done some good thing with the money and the focus for the people that we lost through LRs.

Neither your managerial nor technical leadership have even the most basic skills for development which is why Cisco acquires and most of your development budget goes to fixing 40 years of legacy. Despite some really good work by the Parser Police Cisco can't even create a consistent CLI - actual innovation is far beyond Cisco's reach.

Don't worry about the talented people who were lost via LR. They got far better jobs and pocketed a big chunk of money for the trouble. The rest were replaced with even more employees and nothing got better so a large head count isn't the answer.

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Post ID: @6pxx+1p8MMY10

@3usx+1p8MMY10 + @2dfo+1p8MMY10

Initially (for a few session), where all we had on was the protest movement and racial inequality, especially bringing in some of the speakers, I truly was curious on why we don't discuss more about things that help our company to be profitability like innovations, etc. After the initial few sessions, I am now used to it. We really could have done some good thing with the money and the focus for the people that we lost through LRs.

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Post ID: @3dnv+1p8MMY10

I hope Cisco continues down this path because taking logos from Cisco is like stealing candy from a baby for all of us who left the Cisco “cult”. Terrible products combined with terrible leadership and no real direction based upon profits and reality will come back to bite you.

Heck Blackrock has scrubbed a lot of their ESG and Woke agenda from their verbiage on their website.

Wonder why they did this?

Because in business no one cares about the woke garbage Chuck peddles, they care about profitability.

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Post ID: @3usx+1p8MMY10

Only company I know of where you can miss your numbers and still come out a director because of it. cx joke...

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Post ID: @3cvr+1p8MMY10

They admitted in the Q&A this is just because they’re too stupid to remember to submit all the role titles for things like SPIFFs.

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Post ID: @2gse+1p8MMY10

Typical woke bs from a dinosaur company. More concerned with pronouns than profits. And the band plays on....

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Post ID: @2dfo+1p8MMY10

@1ulh+1p8MMY10

The same with number of DAs and PAs or now call DSEs or PSEs. Some are pretty worthless ppt creators, meeting coordinators, project managers or talking heads.

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Post ID: @1xgt+1p8MMY10

Seems like the TSA roles have been diluted in capabilities or skills set so they just slap them back down. I know of so many SAs that can run circles around TSAs at the TSA focused areas. Sad. Really

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Post ID: @1ulh+1p8MMY10

To those who recently made it to TSA. Great to know how appreciative they are of your efforts when you’re slapped back down with the rest of us. A way to pay less and promote less.
@1zjg+1p8MMY10

Where is my compensation increase for the decrease in title?

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Post ID: @1ova+1p8MMY10

This is one of the reasons I come back here. I get to know things before it happens like this title renaming thing. Kudos!

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Post ID: @1cyj+1p8MMY10

@1zjg+1p8MMY10 TSA was already lower. Account SAs need to know the entire portfolio.

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Post ID: @1dgo+1p8MMY10

To those who recently made it to TSA. Great to know how appreciative they are of your efforts when you’re slapped back down with the rest of us. A way to pay less and promote less.

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Post ID: @1zjg+1p8MMY10

Well I had been trying to put in extra work toward moving up to a new title.. but now, what's the difference?

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Post ID: @1xjj+1p8MMY10

https://imgflip.com/i/82zzbs

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Post ID: @1ksv+1p8MMY10

They don’t want us to be differentiated from eachother. They want us all to be identical cogs. That way they can replace us with a cheap new in career person.

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Post ID: @1zqo+1p8MMY10

So as not to confuse customers we will all use the same title.
Now when making introductions there will be 3 SEs on the call, all saying they are a Solutions Engineer....... Customer feedback = Er that's still confusing.
SE Leadership, ok lets cull the herd so only 1 SE is on the call now, reading the script following the dcloud guide. Better get yourself onto some acting classes that will be the key SE skill going forwards.

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Post ID: @1bde+1p8MMY10

We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.

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Post ID: @1owq+1p8MMY10

Dude keeps saying Solution Engineer but it’s SolutionS Engineer. Also he said they didn’t use external consultants. No duh. Even those id--ts would tell you this is d-mb.

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Post ID: @1bor+1p8MMY10

@1jtm+1p8MMY10 - If presenters blatantly reading from a script bothers you, I suggest avoid this week's Networking Experiences SEVT.

Also, WTF is up with dudes wearing a t-shirt under a sport coat? Looks ridiculous.

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Post ID: @1xkf+1p8MMY10

If TC is just going to stiltedly read off the teleprompter, couldn’t he have just sent the script in an email and saved us all the time and cringe?

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Post ID: @1jtm+1p8MMY10

The plan is to move most of the Account SA’s to specialists because the current TSA’s are not good enough. Most came through acquisitions or from point product competitors.

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Post ID: @1ire+1p8MMY10

They aren’t backfilling EK. We are all being moved into his “specialist organization” excluding the global teams. Moving us away from account management is good as we can focus on tech and be the ninjas called in to compete.

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Post ID: @1wht+1p8MMY10

Customers' suffering will accelerate as the remaining technically competent people in the field move on to greener pastures.

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Post ID: @1nwt+1p8MMY10

Good! They have made SEs less and less technical over the greats. Putting the name Engineer back in will instantly make us lake credible with customers since they see through marketing terms like “Architecture”. Of course, the “Solutions” part is pretty fru fru.

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Post ID: @1zri+1p8MMY10

@1oug+1p8MMY10 SE is a bump up from TSA. You need more technical and interpersonal skills. TSA is the entry level one.

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Post ID: @1imt+1p8MMY10

Architecture has been a critical part of systems work throughout the ages.

If this is true it's simply another way for Cisco to tell its customers Cisco is not a systems company.

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Post ID: @1fig+1p8MMY10

What ki-ls me is they have just been sh-----g all over the technical sellers for months wit the reorganizations, layoffs etc. Who in leadership had this shower though? Give us the name of the originating paint eater! These SLT/ELT MBA fu-ksticks have nothing better to do than this bullsh-t. Products su-k, leaders su-k, but let’s not fix any of that. Let’s marginalize and demean our technical sellers. What the fu-k are you boys on!?!?!

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Post ID: @1tfe+1p8MMY10

It will be BSA, TSA, SE, SA....all get changed over to Solutions Engineer. You will hear something along the lines of "When you hear architect you think of buildings, bridges, etc., not what our engineers do". Get ready to hear this is the best thing ever. Zero feedback from the field on this

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Post ID: @1tkj+1p8MMY10

What about the Solutions Business Architects? I think there are some of those as well?

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Post ID: @1zqc+1p8MMY10

@nim+1p8MMY10 "Honest question. What does TC do all day?"

TC only owns SAs and SEs in the account. He cannot rename TSAs. who are specialized. I thought TSAs belong to the individual technology groups?

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Post ID: @1vbn+1p8MMY10

Give some hints here for TSA, SA and SE. What will each be call now? Whatever happened to CSE?

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Post ID: @1ooy+1p8MMY10

Just because you know bad TSA's, doesn't mean all TSA's are bad. The TSA's I know are rock solid. Bump the bad TSA's back to SE, don't lump the good ones in with them. Those good TSA's are going to be pi---d off by this, me included.

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Post ID: @1oug+1p8MMY10

@1sel+1p8MMY10 Yeah TSAs and especially TSSs have just memorized some slide decks in their very narrow areas.

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Post ID: @1cdh+1p8MMY10

Architects are really not that techy. I once asked TSA to explain how the TCP 3-way handshake works, he could not. Do a supernetting of this network for a hypothetical customer, nada.

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Post ID: @1sel+1p8MMY10

SE is still the default gateway. Only difference is you will have to fill out a request form to talk to an random SE.

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Post ID: @ftr+1p8MMY10

@evw+1p8MMY10 Pooling will fix that because SEs will only have to focus on technical things. No more being the default gateway for all the random other stuff.

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Post ID: @rdq+1p8MMY10

What does it matter? SE/SA/TSA has been d-mbed down and is an AM’s bi--h these days sorting out their problems like poor quality code, licensing and chasing TAC to free them of these issues. The days of SE owning the room long gone. CR has d-mbed down the technical field and Cisco is going down the toilet and circling the drain as a result.

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Post ID: @evw+1p8MMY10

The start of pooling has begun. Lower pay, no career growth opportunities, no professional development, and more are going to happen with this move.

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Post ID: @mrg+1p8MMY10

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