Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

@uwc+1uNxnDqx
Never heard of OP….
Happy to have had CSCO on my resume. Worked with some really brilliant engineers. And I made great $ here. Paid off house and three kids education. No complaints.

Sure, ten years at Cisco won't get you that job at OpenAI....but most Cisco people just float around the same group of D-list companies forever

For example, the crazy number of coworkers in my group who have worked for IBM

You weren’t keeping your skills up-to-date and you are solely responsible for that [by staying at Cisco.]

FTFY.

While there are a rare few brilliant software engineers at the Technical Leader level Cisco promotes too many to Technical Leader who never did anything more than write 10 line bug fixes. By Principal Engineer there are zero engineering skills at any level of the engineering stack. I'd fire every PSE in a heartbeat. I'd consider doing the same for every second level manager on up in the software development organizations. No sane company in the world would tolerate the scale of overruns that Cisco does routinely. Even by the primitive metrics Cisco uses the quality has been objectively very poor for decades.

IT couldn't make Cisco gear work in house. Marketing kept coming up with "all products of this type will be sold tomorrow only so we need 300 features implemented by tomorrow or we'll lose hundreds of millions of dollars." Even sales has no idea what part numbers to order for basic components and when they finally come up with an answer it's the wrong one. Nothing is without issues but hardware seemed to be the one area that performed well.

I know several companies that made the same mistake.

"Was hired at NVIDIA three months ago. >50 with 15 years at CSCO. It comes down to your skills, not the name of your employer"

You made OPs point.

NVIDIA = resume gold
Cisco = resume mold

congratulations for landing a job at NVIDIA, a top tier rising technology company IN SPITE OF having Cisco on your resume (not because of)

It can be hard if your main job function is supporting legacy stuff to keep your skills up.

But, if you’re doing s/w development for internal tools, you get to work w/ SaaS systems in demand, work on or manage cloud servers, etc. & develop skills in demand outside Cisco.

How is the rest of your resume looking? Let's start there instead of just Cisco. And it was your choice to join and keep working here

It's better than putting "punched 66 blocks" on resume.

I'm post Cisco. Employers and interviewers alike were impressed with my skill set, Cisco amongst those.

It's the person, not the companies.

Even though it's having bad times, legacy Cisco time with real, solid skills to back you up is an asset.

@dkn+1uNxnDqx

That is an incredibly condescending and irrational viewpoint. Why would someone not want to be very proud of the integrity of their company, including the integrity of their leadership. The behaviours of senior leadership are not those of a team striving to be market leaders or innovators, which is the main crippling issue to the continued long term viability of this company. Those at the top are also simply empowered and enabled in the ongoing disruption and chronic stress of thousands of employees; stuck in a cycle of LR worry. Not sure how you play into this whole picture, but if you truly believe this is good business practice; not sure what business school you studied at.

There is so much pathetic whining going on here its disgusting. If its so hard to move on after Cisco - its YOU not Cisco. You weren’t keeping your skills up-to-date and you are solely responsible for that. Cisco has nothing to do with that. In fact I would argue…It’s a good thing that Cisco got rid of you because clearly you weren’t doing anything here except collecting a paycheck and stabbing your thumb up your a-s.

Was hired at NVIDIA three months ago. >50 with 15 years at CSCO. It comes down to your skills, not the name of your employer.

Very true if older and have stayed more than a decade. I can attest. I switched careers completely after LR.

My advice to younger people with upward career ambitions: do not stay longer than four years or so.

The upper, upper management destroyed this company. I hope they are proud of their life accomplishments, and messing up the lives of thousands of dedicated employees, for their own self preservation and net worth. Be proud of your accomplishments, ELT.

"i have to beat recruiters off with a stick almost every week"

hahaha. yeah, no

embarrassing to have cisco on resume

Bullsh-t - i have to beat recruiters off with a stick almost every week. if after working at Cisco your career declines it’s because of you not because of Cisco.

It gets even worse when you put Cisco alongside it's competitors. The CyberRatings review of NGFWs gave a caution rating for the Cisco Firepower 2130 against 9 other major players in the market.

I used to be so proud working for Cisco. Now I'm honestly embarrassed.

they fumbled cloud and AI

their "partners" think they're a joke

ordering anything from cisco is a dysfunctional mess. 20% overpriced, 20% longer lead times and 20% more software glitches and they JUST GUTTED TAC!