Pros
1) Opportunities to learn technologies in depth. 2) Get customer handling skills.
Cons
1) Cisco Services executive leadership is working hard to transform the services business to a call-centre business. On an average Cisco Services in US pays significantly less than other Cisco orgs at any grade level. It is common for employees to jump orgs and give themselves an automatic raise. Services is losing talent for several years because of these disparities & scores of extremely good engineers and first line managers have moved out for money. 2) Promo cycles are a myth. It is not uncommon for people to work their @ss off for several years in a row just to be told that either the much awaited promo/equity cycle did not happen, or it was too little to mean anything. By the way, this happens right after massive promos in senior management layer. 3) Management keeps cramming more work into the job role every few months - for no extra dime. Engineers besides learning and supporting their technologies & customers are asked to cross train with other technologies, learn scripting, automate processes, create content, help improve product quality. If engineers don’t invest their personal time there is no way they can meet these unrealistic expectations. 4) Outsourcing has brought morale to a new low. Tremendous amount of services work got moved south of the border in last three years. There is no concrete communication from upper management whether or not they want services' employees in US to thrive or to look out.