Pros
Good benefits, work-life balance and opportunities to learn, travel and work with friendly people. It doesnt matter where you come from. Easy ways to move internally.
Cons
Cisco is a great place to start or end a career. Problem is at the upper level, hundreds of old-timers are clogging the promotion path by protecting each other and sticking around until all their options are vested. There are very few managers promoted to director and above as at these levels, hiring is often from outside. Budget for raise and promotions are always limited whether its good years or bad years. This is forcing management to give raise or promotion to 10% of those who deserve it. The attrition rate is low so they are not trying to identify why people are leaving, HR thinks everything they do is right and are not trying to improve things, except with they screw up like when they reduced everyon'e bonus by 5% which impacted most the junior employees who dropper from 17% to 12% while VPs went from 100% to 95%.