Pros
Awesome office, catered lunches, still growing, 4 (almost 5) out of 6 products are fantastic and easy to sell. Cisco name opens doors, good resume builder if you're a junior sales rep. Most of the sales reps are fantastic. Lots of team activities, you'll make some friends for life. Solid culture, moving away from "tech bro." Great work/life balance but you should want to grind to be successful...no surprise here, typical expectation of sales. Sales reps are compensated hourly so chance to make overtime including on commissions (but recently that's changed thanks to a discouraging email from sr. leadership).
Cons
Most of the senior management that made this place inspiring and fun are gone. Sure they added to the "tech bro" scene of past. Current sr. management at the top never sold, "closed" a customer at Meraki or, worse: are former consultants. Lots of insincere interactions with the big bosses with some minor exceptions who are still approachable and caring (please don't change!). This defeats the purpose of open floor-plan. Basically, open door policy but not really. They've brought in more levels of leadership that just add another level of insincerity. Pretty sure they did that to avoid interaction with the common folk (inside reps) and focus more on the enterprise accounts (field) they're chasing. I get it...but really wish they brought in some inspiring, engaging and genuine leaders. The beloved flat leadership is long gone. Its a bizarre feeling having an awkward interaction with senior leaders. Sr. Leadership wants to create a "culture of feedback" yet rarely seeks feedback: worse, does nothing when given feedback. Some chances for promotion but the path to promotion and interview processes are super sketch: lots of politics and "obnoxious aggression" (learned that in training recently...more on training below, btw). You will not get promoted on just performance, previous experience, contribution, etc. Will definitely need to be political. Revolving door of sales reps on teams leaving managers to cover territories and completely ignoring your development. If you're a new-ish sales rep, this is tough. If you're a sales pro set in a good territory, this may be a good thing because you're left alone. Your immediate manager for the most part means well. At least they were in your shoes, sold and can be trusted. Some are definitely better than other though. I like the "promote from within" aspect but that means you'll get some inexperienced managers here and there. At least they try. The vibe/rumor is most of the experienced reps and managers are disappointed with the changes made but not changes actually impacted by the feedback they provided.... so we will likely lose them as employees. Seems to be a cycle. Course correction overkill and training upon training upon training. Like they're making up for previous feedback of lack of training. Lots of 'new' people even feel like this is overkill. Help us sell and make managers available, rest should be "optional" training. Inside sales role is a combination of account executive, business development, channel sales, account management/customer success and part-tech support role. In a way, this is really good experience but definitely not designed this way. With all the process involved in selling the product, management hasn't kept up with what should be their #1 priority: moving obstacles out of the way to let a salesperson sell. No......please don't read this and do a training on "obstacles!" 1 of the 6 products impossible to sell due to early release...not fully baked. The other one is their bread and butter (switch) line that has just been plagued with recent issues. Hopefully this is fixed as its critical to what is sold. ....and finally: PAY.....Nope, does not pay market value or even close. If you're a junior sales rep or making the move to tech sales, this is where they get you. If you have more than 3-5 years of tech sales experience, pretty much stay away. There was some hope recently for a "market correction" pay increase across the floor....with leadership and HR openly talking about it. Yep, untrue. Some got a slight bump but hardly the market correction. Once reality hit, senior leadership was like "we never promised anything." Yep, you definitely did.
