How come some get promoted at a super fast rate while others are still at the bottom for many years?
I have seen many people at Cisco getting double/triple promoted within a period of 6 months while others are shown all shown all sorts of numbers and they remain at the bottom for a period of 10 years or more . Isn't there a standard procedure/requirement to be promoted ?
As i said before, people managers grown fat on meat off the directors table be given a one time amnesty scheme to change role to tl and start coding and solving customer problems ... or leave...no difference to outcome if they leave or stay.
Anyone dev mgr seen using xls mpp ppt or more than 30 mins of meeting daily be locked up in a conf room for a day on stale bread and water
To get promoted, you need to see how your relation with your manager.
Hard working, Talented, people will never grow up here.
e.g. If you design excellent architect then no one will ask you.
If you fix 1 line of code by highlighting over email to manager,director, sr. director then you will get promoted. Biggest point is that here high volume of people mgrs are there rather than technical managers who doesnot understand the value of hardwork put in.
Also groupism is there. In any company, manager creates his own people who are always waste, very less technical talent but knows how to save their manager by sending 100 mails without right solution. So mgr takes care them. Engineers are like resources , if one goes then other comes so mgrs care their people to get promoted so that mgr grows up. Mgrs are seen how to finish project and sr.mgr director sr.director VP all donot care engineers at all....even donot reply if u shout. HR are waste here.
Politics is there. If you say I want to grow up then donot try high technical work, send 100 mails highlight do initiative which no one uses but do and be in mgr'e eye and no need to work also.
in my team, 90% of team of mgr people got promoted in 1.5 years and donot work at all but helps my mgr in escaping plans by sendng talking beautiful words to upper mgmt who doesnot understand and get fooled.
For learning it is worst company. if you are here for 15 years also no one cares and doesnot think to fire you out........
Cisco is doing layoff right Cisco would have done below to save money & grow better.
(1) Identify who is doing politics
(2) Get Mgr feedback from engineers and fire out mgrs. Here mgrs are given full power and sr,mgr doesot care what mgr does
(3) Identify talented people inside and fire out all smart less talented people.
(4) Focus on current products rather than focus on politics
(5) cut luxury process e.g. ununcessaruly people fly one country to other for meetings where they can do remotely.
(6) Donot promote without min 3 years and relevant work experience.
(7) under mgr , there should not be same religion people
(8) Take serious feedback about mgr, Sr.mgr director from engineer and based upon that give their performance bonus. Higher mgr doesnot do. My mgr cant do coding sr.mgr never did director doesnot know spelling of code :)
Bottom line...it's not what you know, It's who you know. :-)
-Too many Directors (2456), with no or 2-3 reports
-Many VPs
-Two+ CTO per product
If you are a quiet, silent and hardworking person ....you'll never get a chance to get promoted here.
Well, that's your problem right there. There are people that are really focussed on certifications and medals and intellectual bling - but it's a wank. The major thing to get promoted is to ask yourself "what am I doing (1) to grow/support new business (2) make my managers' lives easier (3) not annoy others in the org which gets my executives involved (see 2) and (4) be easy to work with and flexible (never say no).
Now, sit down and see how you're doing against those 4 criteria. Now, I'm not saying that the promotion system in Cisco isn't broken, because it is - it's extremely unbalanced between groups and many times nepotistic. Plus it is overly reliant on visibility (so remote workers are screwed) and on your manager/director making a lot of noise on your behalf - if you don't have a cheer leader above you - you're screwed.
But I think you need to look at the points above. The school doesn't matter (I have no engineering degree) past getting you the first interview for your first job. After that, it's totally irrelevant.
@JbBekA5-ybc : + 1
Good point brought up on Cisco TAC India . I have seen many smart engineers who simply kept at a lower grade never promoted for many years . Most of them have already left but it always begs to ask a question why?
Besides, this managers and directors seem to be just after numbers which does not reflect quality or the sales of a product in anyway.
Same in Europe, people with low degrees or no engineering school degree at all get G12, managers and upper etc, as they do a great brown nosing job, while others with very high rated engineering schools and great diplomas, full of certifications, get stuck for years with no promotion at all, all values are upside-down inside Cisco. I know IC managers for engineering groups with no technical diploma at all...As for experience all they do is copy paste the documents and work done by members of their team and put it on their name and networking with higher execs that's all they know doing!
This is very true about TAC .In Cisco TAC Bangalore nobody knows that it takes to get promoted . If the employee starts questioning the procedures in open they gang up and see it that he is out.
Promotions are a very sensitive topic to discuss within Cisco . If one starts questioning most promotions given out in India TAC most of promotions would be found to be null and void .