Pros
- while base salary can be comparitively low the overall package can be pretty good, esp when one factors in things like fitness center, onsite child care, hair cut, car wash, onsite dental, laundry etc - We eat our own dogfood, we are our best customers truly means something here. Use of IP Phone, Content switches, routers, wireless and of course Cisco Telepresence. - an enthusiastic employee can do more than just work...Cisco is big on philanthopy and there are a bunch of things to volunteer at...e.g. employee resource groups for new hires - the CEO is one of the primary reasons the company is doing well and many employees look up to him and his brand of leadership - takes care of its employees, performing or not....remember the bonus we got when the rest of the technology companies were laying off people? - stock options for employees is really unique and is truly followed. the amount of options and their present value is a different question though.
Cons
- base salary can be really low for those hired during the dot com bubble and as a result the increments are low. new hires at cisco are being brought on board at base salaries that are anywhere between 15-25 % higher than a comparable job for a veteran. - seniority matters....even though on paper job rotation is encouraged in reality the longer one stays in a group and does an average job the better the chance of being promoted. Of course proximity to your boss and bosses boss is important - lot of deadwood...a.k..a directors, senior directors, manager, and senior manager......you can recognize these logs by the ways they speak (pretty much what they do) and the words they use (out of the box thinking and whatever other latest TLA....three letter acronym that is floating around) - lack of timely and adequate recognition for individual contributors....the joke around the company is that the new logo of cisco has fewer bars on it because there are fewer individual contributors doing the actual job (as compared to management) and they are carrying the burden of the company on their shoulders :-) Every tom, dick and harry in IT wants to be a manager, regardless of his/her capabilities and competence. the folks above are sitting tight in their position. the last time IT experience such a situation was when many folks wanted to get to IT project manager position and to take the steam off the program manager job family was created. Go figure! - too much IT bureaucracy....even to get a small change on non production environment one has to get tons of approvals and emails .......unless you have the right connections. or use authority.
