- I hired on in 2000. Made it until LR 2017.
- Over that long window, I worked for (only) three great Directors who definitely pushed us, but also rewarded us with generous options and RSUs. The big difference it sounds like between then and now seems to be people could lock in to a group and be somewhat assured that things would not change dramatically for three to four year roadmaps. We worked crazy hours but was blessed to see crazy paychecks with bonuses.
- Things changed around 2015. It took two years. Our great VP was LR'd. Great Director got fed up with resulting politics and went to other group. Techno-nerds like me were lost in the resultant churn. I ended up working for a skilled politician who promptly LR'd me. It is truly sad to me how Cisco completely botched up the AWS-like series of IoT offers around that time. That was the Cisco window to become a true cloud company and they dropped the ball. I was part of that failure and LR'd.
- Since I am a good yes-I-know-my-stuff Techno-nerd, I somewhat immediately had a post LR job. Essentially doing same development work at a place that executes like old 2004 Cisco. Three years out I have an even better Techno-Nerd job, and a substantial part of the job (regretfully perhaps) is using the skills that Cisco taught me, to now migrate customer infrastructure to AWS.
- Honestly it is sad, because I loved most of my time at Cisco and would have stayed. Cisco Executives you need to really look at what is happening out there. AWS slowly but persistently going take the place of what Cisco should be, now and in the future.