Thread regarding Cisco Systems Inc. layoffs

Well, with the new love of "hard metrics" now popular in at least one BU, you are almost begging people to cut/paste code rather than reuse a routine.

Given that this has been going on for decades I don't think anything "new" should be considered a cause. The scale of copying goes from code replicated dozens of times within a single routine to whole platforms, and when you look at all the different levels that code gets replicated you end up with an exponential growth in the number of outstanding bugs, many of which end up being found by customers. As for the metrics, anyone still wrapped up in KLOCs needs to go.

Well, with the new love of "hard metrics" now popular in at least one BU, you are almost begging people to cut/paste code rather than reuse a routine.

Too true, @NVwijry-3xvr. During my time at Cisco, I didn't work with many developers who seemed to be aware of core software engineering concepts which apply regardless of application, development method, or language. This lack of knowledge was pervasive in the leadership ranks, which results in poor decisions. SHIP IT!

While I spent two frustrating years working at outdated horrible code from the 90s...

Stop blaming the 1990s. None of the major code bases would have been considered acceptable by FORTRAN programmers in the 1960s. Functional decomposition has been around for millennia which allowed people in the 1960s to write functions far less than a thousand lines long and refactoring allowed for the total amount of code to be greatly reduced, which is the opposite of the cutting and pasting that has made the code bases (and by definition bug counts) at Cisco many times the size they need to be. You didn't even need anything sophisticated like FORTRAN to learn these things - machine code on some of the earliest programmable calculators with storage for only tens of instructions allowed you to use these concepts with GOSUB where refactoring was the only way to make many programs fit in memory.

If the engineering staff at Cisco had these and other basic skills taught in high school in the 1970s you would have one tenth the staff and code yet still have more functionality in your products. Having worked almost exclusively with higher ranked people I can point to one DE and zero PEs that had these skills and zero management up through the SVP level that could begin to grasp why this is a problem. Cisco has never had strong leadership which is why you need to acquire to survive.

What is in it for you to care.

Because there are people who can still end a question with a "?" and we want them to become useful again once they are eventually laid off.

I agree with the O.P. Cisco has taken its eyes off of the ball. It has gotten all wrapped up in chasing shiny objects while its core is hollowed out due to market loss to Juniper and Arista - in their respective market niches.

Obviously by design . Consider if you will what the Orwellian "people deal" gives you . Not you but Cisco. It breaks the link between employees and managers .So all LRs come from above like drone strikes. We are all contractors now . Nice idea if used clinically and swiftly but real potential for metastatis if left too long. Too dystopian even for corporate America ?

Cisco culture has evolved into middle school or high school style popularity contest.

The team of mental giants which decided that a company could be ran without formal performance reviews should be awarded a medal for being able to actually enable this reality. Who thinks this all up?

If there is no performance review, you really do not truly know if you are meeting the job requirements or not.

Just keep on telling yourself; it's all going so good, there is no need for formal performance reviews.

Q4 we all got great bonuses because we exceeded expectations.

Really? I call BS. Q4 isn't over yet. The Q3 results were so bad that Cisco had to expand the LR announced in Q1 by an additional 1100 employees. The mid-year bonus was cut in half and the Q4 outlook was lowered meaning that it wasn't likely to pay out the year-end bonus.

...and as for abusive management I have never come across it. It's just gossip..."

Then either you've been lucky or I've been unlucky. I'll be positive and hope that I was the unlucky one. I had an abusive management chain on one team. The previous manager quit and within 2 yrs, the new manager had run off 80% of the previous manager's team. I was LR'd as part of the '11 workforce reduction increasing that percentage.

Funny thing was, 30 days before the impacted employees were informed they (I) was impacted, our newly promoted director who took the voluntary early retirement package told the entire group under him that he wasn't surprised by the "pulse" survey results. Of the three managers under him, at the time the survey was taken, two managers scored an average of 4 out of 5. I'll let you guess which manger scored a 2 out of 5. If he wasn't surprised, then why wasn't he taking actions? He had to approve the bonuses & rankings of all the employees of the years since that BU's inception and he and all managers except the new one where there from it's inception, so why the sudden departure of all the employees that had been great performers for years? Was he such a bad manager/director that he didn't notice the departure of good staff? Or that he would keep bad staff around for years and reward them? Which is it? I wanted to ask him in front of the entire group during the pulse survey results meeting, but I wasn't 100% sure I was one of the ones being impacted.

One could argue that the departing manager was really good and he was faking the results of his team to make a large team look better than it was and that when the new manager arrived, he saw the truth and cleaned house. Or, one could argue that the team got where it was by good, hard work and the new manager could't do his job well and needed s--- ups and yes-men so he drove off almost all the original team. I know what I would argue. I also see that his team is no longer doing any development or supporting development processes.

If you read this far down, then let me say I'm not a whiner wanting to be spoon-fed my entire career. I was lucky enough to spend most of my Cisco career working for a great management chain. There are pockets of abusive management. In my case, it was helped/protected by HR because of the relationship between the director & the senior HR rep supporting that BU. I can only hope that things get bad enough that the ELT is forced to bring in good talent who can take the painful steps to clean house and fix Cisco and not let the current decline continue to the bitter end. But, I've seen a company, albeit much smaller, where the ELT just keep cutting the company until finally they laid off everyone but one executive assistant, moved the ELT into a small office suite and kept the business open for 9 months while their wages emptied out the company's assets. How can a company that is supposed to sell services operate when there's no sales team? When there's no project management, development, or IT teams to develop the product you sell? Or at least maintain it for the customers you managed to sell it to previously?

--> Cisco has a seriously broken ELT ! Scream loudly until shareholders understand.

The company started losing ground innovation-wise under Chambers. When Chambers retired, Cisco's board of directors had an opportunity to recruit a CEO with serious technology chops - one who'd disrupt, who'd drag the company back to technological relevancy and position it for future success. They didn't. Instead, they chose a longtime Cisco employee with a sales background, basically preserving the status quo.

Nothing against Chuck, but with Cisco continuing to struggle innovation-wise, I question whether he's the optimal person for the job at this point in time.

What is Cisco's best product or solution? How does Security rank in the industry? Asking for a friend.

Cisco culture values salesmen, storytellers, and politicians. Qualities that typically do not align to engineering or innovation. The talented engineers left several years ago.

Honestly, what is the cause of the atrocious product quality and slow feature development? Did all the good engineers get laid off or quit, can't attract talent because it's not s-xy/interesting, mismanaged, or what?

Why are you still here trying to astroturf the place with rainbow clad unicorns ?

Cisco has a seriously broken ELT ! Scream loudly until shareholders understand.

@1whe

Why are you still there hanging around and trolling the forum if you are now working in a company/competitor that is way miles better than Cisco? What is in it for you to care.

@1xvg what do you mean by spoon feeding?

The real issue?

Cisco is an absolutely atrocious engineering company and has horrendous engineering culture. I am working in a company right now that competes with a product that Cisco has in offering. While I worked in a sea of 100+ engineers, multiples managers, directors and VPs with no heads and tails, at this company, we work in a flat team of 6 and have probably 100 times more efficiency.

At Cisco, it's about saving your skin, your job and do the same mindless tasks with zero innovation. While I spent two frustrating years working at outdated horrible code from the 90s, at the new place, I have learnt 3 new languages and multiple new frameworks from development to automation in a short 6 months. Go figure.

Microsoft saved itself from this abysmal culture. Cisco may not. The only innovation they have these days is stock buyback and outsourcing what little highly paid software engineering jobs to Bangalore. Ladies and Gentlemen, you are looking at Tata/Wipro/Infosys style consulting firm 5 years down the road (if they are lucky).

We have a higher headcount now and as for abusive management I have never come across it. It's just gossip spread by whiners that want to be spoon fed their entire career.

How about the nearly 30,000 people impacted by layoffs recently? Did they receive great Q4 bonuses?

Or the thousands forced to quit due to an abusive management chain?

Oh stop being dramatic. Q4 we all got great bonuses because we exceeded expectations. Do you have a memory like a goldfish or you just one of these glass half empty guys?

A 'few'? Are you new?

Huh? We've had a few iffy quarters. Stop being a drama queen. Grow some balls.