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Cisco to lay off about 14,000 employees

reuters.com

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Re: Cisco to lay off about 14,000 employees

#231

Post by justinhj »

72deluxe wrote: post #134
lazaroclapp wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite so clear. This is a layoff of 14,000 hardware or low-level networking systems engineers [1], not 14,000 front-end developers, it is not so obvious to me that the current Silicon Valley market is ready to absorb them so easily. Interesting to think those were the kind of jobs, and CISCO the kind of company, that once gave Silicon Valley its name. Makes you wonder how the market for software engineers, even a…

I always wonder what happens to those software engineers, the "hack through the night" sort of guys. They must eventually burn out, or get replaced by the younger developers who are onto the next "hack through the night" project. There must reach a stage in development where you're considered "too old" (sadly) or haven't kept up with the latest and greatest in trends. What do you do then?? Project manage? Do all deve…

This is a personality thing I think. Some people do want to just stick with what they know by the time they are 25 and would rather be unemployed or in management than learn something new. I'm 45. I've worked in video games for my entire working life. Yet throughout that time I've shifted roles drastically every 5-10 years. This keeps things fresh and it lets me stay employed and in demand without having to become a hands-off manager or sit in the corner working on legacy code.

Re: Cisco to lay off about 14,000 employees

#232

Post by m52go »

drawkbox wrote: post #72

Let's just say the average salary is 70k which is very conservative. That is 14k * 70k annually lost from the local community, a grand total of 980M or let's just say 1 billion annually. Looking for another job when there are massive cuts like this also degrades the salary they accept on their next job because of the competition. I wish companies, if possible, throttled layoffs a bit more instead of large chunks like…

I understand this isn't a good situation for the community, but what about the other side? That $980m isn't just disappearing into thin air.

CSCO will use it to refocus their efforts into more valuable services, which by itself will entail some level of hiring & investment, and if successful, they'll hire & invest more.

If you think this is an optimistic perspective, consider the alternative...CSCO continues employing people who aren't optimally productive for its goals, and ultimately the whole company runs into the ground and EVERYONE needs new jobs.

Layoffs are an unappealing and emotionally-charged but necessary part of the corporate lifecycle.

Re: Cisco to lay off about 14,000 employees

#233

Post by BinaryIdiot »

72deluxe wrote: post #146
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly when I worked at CSC it was the same way. The amount of people we'd have in our group that we'd have to interview from other parts of CSC in order for them to stay employed was staggering. Even worse was many of them were developers for over 20 years and couldn't program much of anything =/

What languages did they work in?

The vast majority were Java developers. I always felt bad about it as I never passed a single one of them during my time working there and interviewing them. They were in such a shitty position but at the same time I only ever had one of them actually able to talk through how to code something (and even that person said they only "know how to do a for loop in theory" which I don't understand but I digress).

I'm fine interviewing people but interviewing people within the same company where if they don't pass your interview they're going to be laid off? Obviously it's far worse for them but it's a shitty situation all around.

Re: Cisco to lay off about 14,000 employees

#234

Post by 72deluxe »

cm2187 wrote: post #201
hvidgaard wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never stated all evolution should be followed blindly. But once the evolution becomes established as best practice, there is very few reasons to not do it.

But 8y ago WCF was marketed by Microsoft as the future of web services. It was clear to me from the outset that it was a mightmare to configure and unecessary complex. Now I think it is the generally accepted view. But if we have to wait 8 years for each new technology...

8 years for each new technology indeed....

MFC anyone?

With the push to Universal Apps (that nobody appears to be heeding), what is Microsoft's recommended toolkit for C++ in Windows now eh?

Here we are with > 2 million lines of C++, entirely MFC and COM.

Re: Cisco to lay off about 14,000 employees

#235

Post by mathattack »

karma_vaccum123 wrote: post #214
mholmes680 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, its like being stuck in purgatory. Although, I disagree somewhat with your last statement -- in my experience, all throttled layoffs have been a result of acquisition synergies. The current one around me is by a market leader with a great past and excellent vision of the future. From my experience there's an easy way out of this: take control of your own career. Ask yourself: are these the conditions I want…

But when layoffs are as big as 14k, rarely are employees evaluated for individual value...it's usually entire business units or office locations that are closed. Throttled or not, the people exiting Cisco have likely already been picked...not much they can do about it in the meantime.

20% is a very high number, especially given how many layoffs Cisco has had. I've been in situations where 10% got laid off, and there were still weak performers who could be let go. This usually happens in cultures where it is very hard to fire people, so they use layoffs to cover for weak performance management. (And weak performance management can be a cause to need the layoffs to begin with)

Re: Cisco to lay off about 14,000 employees

#237

Post by draw_down »

drawkbox wrote: post #72

Let's just say the average salary is 70k which is very conservative. That is 14k * 70k annually lost from the local community, a grand total of 980M or let's just say 1 billion annually. Looking for another job when there are massive cuts like this also degrades the salary they accept on their next job because of the competition. I wish companies, if possible, throttled layoffs a bit more instead of large chunks like…

I definitely disagree, from the perspective of remaining employees morale. Doing a slow-drip of layoffs is the worst for employees because you basically have to constantly worry if you'll have a job in a few months.

Re: Cisco to lay off about 14,000 employees

#238

Post by [deleted] »

mholmes680 wrote: post #212
mathattack wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been through throttled layoffs in the past. They're much much worse. 1) You're always looking over your shoulder, and can't think about long term projects or work. 2) The first people out (frequently the weakest performers) are able to find jobs the easiest, but by the time the better employees are also let go, the market demand has been filled. 3) It encourages and environment of non-cooperation. Employees coop…

I agree, its like being stuck in purgatory. Although, I disagree somewhat with your last statement -- in my experience, all throttled layoffs have been a result of acquisition synergies. The current one around me is by a market leader with a great past and excellent vision of the future. From my experience there's an easy way out of this: take control of your own career. Ask yourself: are these the conditions I want…

[deleted]

Re: Cisco to lay off about 14,000 employees

#239

Post by bogomipz »

codeisawesome wrote: post #199

This is Cisco admitting defeat to commodity manufacturers. I wonder if there is a massive skilled worker crunch on the other side of the world from which the commodity manufacturers operate (despite the huge population).

Is it? Because I guarantee if you go look at the Akamis, and Level 3's, really any large scale CDN or Telecom network you will find that is majority Cisco and Juniper. Aside from a handful or very large companies like FB and Google that have the expertise to build their own, you won't find a lot of commodity hardware running the datacenter.
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