Pros
I was hired by Cisco in a program called Cisco choice program. For those of you who have never heard of Cisco choice program, let me tell you what it is. When I signed my offer letter, I had to choose one of the five given start dates. When I came on the first day, I saw many other new hires like me who were hired as chooice hires. For the next one month, we were bombarded with information about the company and different Business Units within the company. After a month once we have all that information, all the choice new hires get to choose the BU, the team, the manager they want to work for. Isn't this awesome??? Cisco gives you an opportunity to work with so many different technologies, roles and flexibility to move around. The compensation is also good which adds to the reasons to work for Cisco.
Cons
The recognition and feedback system could be better. I would like to see some healthy feedback about my job from the upper management and a recoginition for the goals accomplished. I have also heard ( haven't experienced yet) that there is always some politics involved when it comes to promotions, passing projects and things like that. There is no customer interaction between the engineer who actually build a product and the customers who use the product. Cisco should also try to focus on the overall development of its employees rather than just the area he is currently working on.. -