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Cisco plans to eliminate 471 positions across three California offices as part of a wider restructuring announced in May. The job cuts will affect employees in San José, Milpitas and San Francisco, according to notices filed with the California Employment Development Department.
The networking and cybersecurity company previously said it would cut fewer than 4,000 jobs worldwide, representing less than 5% of its workforce. The latest filings provide more detail about the California positions included in that plan.
Cisco will eliminate 236 positions in San José, 154 in Milpitas and 81 in San Francisco. Employees received notices on May 14, while the terminations are scheduled to begin on July 13. Some affected workers may leave within the 13 days following that date.
The company described the reductions as permanent in its Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification letters. California law requires certain employers to provide workers and state officials with at least 60 days’ notice before a large layoff or facility closure.
Cisco said it had no additional information beyond the restructuring details released in May. The company has described the plan as an effort to lower costs in some business areas while directing more resources toward selected investments.
Chief Executive Chuck Robbins told employees that Cisco expects to benefit from the growth of artificial intelligence. He also said reaching that goal requires “making hard decisions — about where we invest, how we’re organized, and how our cost structure reflects the opportunity in front of us.”
The layoffs cover several departments, including software development, product management, design and business operations. Software engineers form the largest single group listed in the California notices, with 56 positions scheduled for elimination.
That total includes 34 software engineering jobs in Milpitas, 19 in San José and three in San Francisco. Cisco will also cut 39 software engineering technical leader positions across the three offices. Milpitas accounts for 27 of those roles.
Meanwhile, other affected positions include 17 engineering product managers, 15 software engineering leaders and 12 directors of software engineering. Cisco also listed 12 engineering program managers, nine directors of product management and eight business operations managers.
The notices include seven site reliability engineers, seven program managers and seven software quality assurance engineers. The range of job titles shows that the restructuring reaches both technical teams and management positions.
A Cisco business partner executive described the reductions as part of a familiar cost-cutting pattern. The executive said sources viewed the move as “the regular Cisco cadence” before certain quarterly earnings announcements. Cisco did not confirm that assessment.
Cisco is carrying out the layoffs while reporting stronger financial results. The company recorded quarterly revenue of $15.8 billion, its highest level for a fiscal third quarter. Net income rose 35% from the previous year to $3.4 billion.
The company markets its networking products as critical infrastructure for the AI sector. Demand for data centers and AI computing systems has supported spending on networking equipment, cybersecurity products and related services.
Nevertheless, technology companies have also reduced staff while increasing AI investment. Meta, Snap, Block, Oracle and Amazon are among the companies that have announced job cuts this year. Some executives have linked workforce changes to automation and the wider use of AI tools.
US technology companies announced 123,653 job cuts between January and May, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas. This figure increased 66% from the same period in 2025. The firm said companies cited AI more often than any other reason, although it questioned whether AI alone explains the wider rise in layoffs.
Cisco reported about 86,200 employees as of July 2025. Its planned global reduction of fewer than 4,000 positions would affect less than 5% of that workforce.
