Cisco Program Manager reviews

Annual Layoffs - Cisco is bleeding top talent and top talent would think twice about joining this company. Needs to get smarter around hiring practices as to limit the annual layoff trend. Change Fatigue - It is really unclear if the Cisco Strategies work because Cisco is in a constant rate of change. Executive Leadership is very shy about making decisions or there is too much collaboration and not enough directive decision making.

If you are a red badge (contractor) in the USA- odds are you will never become a full time employee with benefits. Back in 2011, 40% of the company was contract, today it is higher. Many have the dreams and desires to convert from contractor to employee but your odds are almost as good as playing the lotto. (If you are a women, your odds will be better - as you will help the desired diversity metrics). Raises almost never happen. They are the exception and not the rule. Continual layoffs of higher paying positions - almost every year - cost shifting of higher paying jobs to lower paying areas outside of Bay Area/USA. Each job has very limited role responsibility because they are typically structured in a silo - so after two years you might get bored and will want to go through the job rotation program. Some departments had VERY inflated job titles compared with the outside world. I have met Directors and Senior Directors that I wouldn't let them run a McDonalds (if I owned one). As they say in Texas - all hat and no cattle. If you are a straight white male not in engineering it's not the best place to advance - you will have difficulties in advancing because you will not meet the desired diversity quota. Because engineering is so heavily weighted toward men, the other areas of the business are being strongly encouraged to hire women. I've seen entire departments shift from 50/50 to 75/80% women. Many of the women prefer only to hire women. The women dominated departments are creating new issues which I had never seen before in any organization and in certain cases slows down progress. While I support the advancement of women, some things are hard to challenge, change or modify without coming across as a Neanderthal. (I hope they balance things out better in the future). The LGBT agenda can create a hostile environment after the inclusion and diversity on the annual review implemented by a previous HR exec who is now at Twitter. The review now can be used against those that have more traditional views of the world. It creates and Orwellian world where the word inclusion means exclusion. If you work at Cisco too long you might become immersed in the slow "collaborative" bureaucratic way of doing things where nothing gets done and perhaps lose your ability to act and think quickly.