From Email to Empowerment: Realizing my Dreams at Cisco

I woke up early and started to check my emails. While scrolling quickly, I noticed an email from Cisco Meraki. It was an invitation to a phone screening. I couldn’t believe it. I thought I was still asleep.

But I wasn’t. It was real. I completed all the steps of the interview process, and recently, I completed my first two years as a Cisconian, where I am a Software Engineer on the Customer Solutions Marketing Web Experience team, developing solutions for our web assets using different programming languages and managing some parts of the security side of our assets.

I wrote my first code when I was 11 years old with a good old Commodore 64, a gift from my dad. Then, years later, in my native Turkiye, I co-founded a web hosting company where we created a small data center. That’s when I became aware of Cisco technology, its reliability, and its reputation. Seeing how Cisco was on the leading edge of technology sparked my dream to work here one day.

I got closer to my dream when I won the Green Card lottery in 2018 and moved to the U.S. in 2019.

The first two years in this country were challenging for me and my wife, including driving for rideshare services and updating my skills at a software boot camp. It was a learning process for us, and I’m glad for that because learning is an endless journey in life. That journey brought me to Cisco.

I couldn’t sleep the night before my Cisco onboarding. I had to be reminded, “You’re on mute,” the next day because I was so excited to be here. I haven’t been on mute since because our collaborative and supportive culture encourages us to speak up and share our ideas, knowledge, and thoughts to learn from one another and help each other grow. Cisco is made up of good people who create the diverse and inclusive community we have here. My coworkers gave me a virtual hug when I started. I felt at home, and that feeling was priceless.

When I look back at my two years here, I have learned a great deal. On the technical side, I have taken many different courses, trainings, webinars, and had valuable team conversations. Instructor-led and on-demand learning helps improve my skills and innovate our work. I’m so lucky as a Cisconian that we have so many different opportunities for training and growth.

I’ve learned even more about how to help others. Through our Time2Give benefit (80 hours of paid time off in addition to regular paid time off), I work with Austin Habitat for Humanity doing construction to help provide affordable housing for others. I slept out last year in Houston for Covenant House, Cisco’s annual event, where participants come together all over the world and give up their beds for one night, raising money to fight youth homelessness. If I hadn’t had these opportunities and others, a piece of my soul might be missing.

Trust is also an incredible motivation for me — more than money, more than a bonus, more than recognition. As an experienced engineer with expertise in different areas, my managers, leaders, teammates, and friends recognize what I bring to Cisco, and their trust in me is my critical fuel. And mostly, I hear the following from my leaders, “We trust you; you can do it. Even if you’re in another country or on an aircraft.”

Thanks to that unwavering trust, support, and flexibility, I have seamlessly merged my passion for exploration with my professional commitments, working remotely. It has opened up a world where deadlines and dreams ride side by side, allowing me to fulfill my responsibilities efficiently while feeding my soul with the endless beauty of the open road, where I take too many photos in my Cisco swag (I have more than the Cisco Store!) in other parts of the world, like Turkiye, Mexico, different parts of the U.S., on a motorcycle, in our R.V., on the lake, and at the airport. The world is my office, and every destination holds a new lesson, a fresh perspective, and a chance to recharge, especially with our four additional company-wide paid days off — Days for Me — to spend time with our family, dog, and hobbies. Our fur baby, Smoky, is always happy and grateful for those days because I have more time with him.

This might sound like an interview answer, but I aim to touch others’ lives at work, with my code, with my hands, and with my ideas. Cisco is the perfect place to reach that goal, with its technology, culture, and people.

Let me start my last words with an “if” statement as if I were a developer: If Cisco is a dream for you, don’t stop chasing it. Follow it to our careers site. Opportunities are waiting, and one of them fits your skills. You, too, might just receive that life-changing email — an email that transforms your dreams into reality.

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