Asking for a friend lol
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Nothing says ‘we’re a serious tech company’ like defending non-technical leadership by citing companies that could light $10 billion on fire and still make payroll.
Because if a trillion dollar company with unlimited headcount can absorb deadweight, surely Cisco can right. Flawless logic.
Define "technical". Amazon, Google, etc have been hiring non technical people for technical roles for decades. It all started with the trend that "open minds" could bring new ideas. What a load of horse hockey. Look at the resumes on LinkedIn.....lots of BS titles and work experience that doesn't add up to "tech", yet they are employed.
If it’s supposed to be a technical organization, then leadership needs to stop pretending technical depth is optional. Simple.
One can’t demand certs and talk about complexity while making decisions without understanding the system.
Bugs aren’t a reflection of effort, they’re a reflection of poor technical judgment at the top.
If leadership can’t engage at that level, then nothing changes, and teams are left cleaning up the same problems over and over again.
No product is ever built without bugs and issues. If one doesn’t have the ability to understand that, not sure what they are doing in this company.
Any real director knows all bugs are fixable in two days regardless of complexity so all they have to do is yell "fix all bugs in two days." How many brain cells do you need to do that?
Why is ELT not looking into this?
Look at Southwest Airlines in 2022. A system breakdown exposed years of leadership to decisions made without understanding how core systems actually worked. When it failed, there was no control at the top.
$1B+ gone in days!!!!
This is what happens when people attach themselves to name-drop customers and big deals without even understanding what’s underneath. The real work is done by ICs. Non tech managers in just carry the narrative.
It works until it breaks.
The none tech people simply assign themselves to big deals in SFDC and BS their involvement to maintain their positions within Cisco whilst the tech people did all the work. Happens all the time and explains another reason why Cisco is fu---d. Too many hangers on.
i joined csco about a two yrs ago, and honestly it’s been a very frustrating journey.
i don’t come from a technical background, so I’ve been trying to learn everything on my own, but there’s been almost no guidance from my manager.
when I ask questions, instead of getting help, I’m told I should already know this. How, exactly???????? there hasn’t been proper onboarding, no clear direction, nothing to really build on.
i’m putting in the effort, but it feels like I’m being set up to struggle. It’s hard to improve when the expectation is to just know things without being given any support to learn them.
Any examples ?
A big one people always point to is Knight Capital Group in 2012. They rolled out a trading software update without fully understanding how the old and new code would interact (basically a coordination + oversight failure), and no one caught that part of the system was still triggering legacy behavior. Within like 45 minutes of going live, the system started firing off massive unintended trades — and they lost about $440 million almost instantly. The company basically collapsed and had to be acquired to survive lol
It’s not just “a non-technical PM messed up,” but a perfect example of what happens when the people making rollout decisions don’t fully grasp the technical risks, dependencies and testing gaps. Stuff engineers would flag as “this needs tighter control” gets waved through and then production turns into a very expensive experiment.
@a8 If you notice, these non technical managers, have zero technical skills/no certifications and love playing politics for their survival. Many even do not have relevant managerial experience but were hired by su-king up to leadership and maintaining good rapport with them. They then scapegoat and identify ICs actually doing the hard work/ steal credit for their survival. Many of these non technical managers somehow manage to be associated with large accounts so that they can survive within Cisco and shield themselves from any accountability. They manipulate the spreadsheet with numbers/charts showing they were involved with big accounts when all they did was be in the same perimeter ( not even in the room) with the technical teams who have done all the hard work. These so called non technical managers then lower the standard for other teams by promoting folks with their "credit theft" culture mindset and downplaying actual work. This continues within Cisco for future iterations till the company goes the Xerox route.
it's very simple. The ICs are made liable for any defects.
if a project goes wrong all the manager has to do is to identify the scape goat and push it in front of the firing squad.
This has been so everywhere where I worked before. At one point I had a manager who was leading an engineering team and his only studies were "high school completed". He handpicked two from the team to be his lieutenants and he would always go to the meetings assisted by these guys. It worked for a long time till they hired a VP who wanted to speak with him alone and he could not sustain the technical discussion with the VP who was technical by background. He was fired shortly after that but the fu--ing id--t led that team for many many years, since before I landed there
You shouldn’t have hired non-technical managers in a technical department. They will lower the technical standards of your entire team, and there’s no way to reverse that…
As a director who’s been here for 12 years, I’ve witnessed this issue in many new directors. Often, they hire non-technical managers because they lack self-esteem and need to find people to validate their worth. This is the worst mistake you can make in your career.
The same way a "software company" sells software written largely by people who don't know anything about software tested by people who don't know anything about testing.
The real question is why haven't Cisco's competitors eaten them alive? My guess for the past few decades has been Cisco's competitors are ex-Cisco people.
How can you be so d-mb as to not know that tech companies need nontech managers and vice versa?
Asking for a friend lol.