Cisco reviews

Boxborough is full of dead wood. Most of the talented people have left or are itching to. Zero balance between work and home life. It's 24/7 stress due to an oversized workload, undersized staff, and too many people who are mediocre at their jobs. Fair or not, there's a perception from other locations that San Jose is full of people who get paid for doing very little. It's all who you know. For sure the company is dominated by the IOS group, none of whom seem to understand software developement. Brain-dead stress on metrics is driving the company and leading to ridiculous behaviors...example: rating managers weekly on their bug counts, while concurrently outsourcing QA to a third party in India where workers performance is based on how many bugs they find: you can guess what happened. Morale at Boxborough extremely low. Then corporate came up with the PULSE employee satisfaction survey and tied it back-door to managers' compensation. So now the managers are mad at the rank and file for being unhappy. I know one manager that actually made his people take the survey twice with an unsubtle threat that they'd better score "happier" next time.

Cisco is full of mid‑level managers who behave like they’re untouchable — because they are. It doesn’t matter how many HR cases get filed or how blatant the behavior is. The same managers who discriminate against women, treat women as objects, ignore boundaries, and act like mini‑gods openly brag that HR can’t touch them. They laugh about it in hallways and treat sensitivity training like a comedy routine. This isn’t a few bad actors; it’s a structure that protects them, and they know it. If you expect real accountability or psychological safety, you won’t reliably find it here. Everyone at Cisco knows that if you end up with a terrible manager, you’re stuck and eventually have to find a new job. I’ve watched that dynamic play out for nearly a decade. P.S. Cisco’s “Best Place to Work for Women” recognition is tied to external PR and doesn’t reflect the internal reality for many women.