Cisco Sr. Software Engineer reviews

4.0

70% would recommend to a friend

(1,002 total reviews)
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Chuck Robbins

75% approve of CEO

69% positive business outlook

Sr. Software Engineer employees have rated Cisco with 4.0 out of 5 stars, based on 1,002 company reviews on Glassdoor. This indicates that most Sr. Software Engineer professionals have a good working experience there. Cisco is rated in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) by Sr. Software Engineer professionals compared to other employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

1K reviews
3.0
Sep 5, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good Telecommuting program and benefits. Some of the best engineers in the field work here and still enjoy the work.

Cons

Highly political, takes too long for decisions, kiss ass culture for better ranking and promotion, Dictatorial executive management in some BUs, Sr. management clueless. Experience and results doesn't count for compensation and promotion.

2.0
Jul 1, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Decent benefits Looks good on resume Was great until about 2003-4, but has slid downhill since.

Cons

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.

5.0
Jun 16, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

great work life balance. Opportunities withing Cisco always come up. Corporate communication from upper management is frequent and clear. Compensation is reasonable and benefits are very good. I worked at a number of other companies, startups and large companies alike. Cisco treats their employees very good comparatively and expects good work out of them. Overall the best managed company I've ever worked for in my 12 year career. I worked at Cisco in the past, left and came back for this exact reason. I recommend anyone to come and work for Cisco. It is truly the best place to work.

Cons

Live work and play anywhere, but working from home is discouraged. I can see the reasoning behind this, but productivity must be measurable and as long as goals are met, working from home should be the norm to save commute time, fuel costs, environmental impact.

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