I was an employee of Splunk prior to its acquisition by Cisco. To say the two organizations run things completely different is to say it mildly.
Micromanagement, passive aggressiveness, poor communication are just a few of the things that I still remember post acquisition.
The level of micromanagement is counter productive and yields far less results than trying to imbed a sense of true ownership. Prior to acquisition Splunkers for the most part were valued as individuals. Post, it is more do it or else mentality. From interactions and observations, direct line managers are heavily stressed causing the ripple effect.
Favorites or favoritism are in more abundance post acquisition resulting in increasing 90/10 rule. Promotions are more cutthroat post acquisition as Cisco actually thinks Splunkers coming over were paid too much. So they shuffled folks around, froze headcount that created more work for those still there, and reduced the promotion slots. SEs started jumping off the burning ship so I followed suit and am thankful I did. More and more it seemed like the Splunk folks were just surviving rather than thriving.
I was honestly a bit sad when I left because I had so much fun working with Splunk prior to the acquisition. It was energetic, vibrant, and employees had loyalty to the brand. The work was challenging in a good way and people’s individual strengths were leveraged as opposed to having one cookie cutter mold for all.
