Senior Customer Success Architect - Isovalent

The application window is expected to close on: 06/26/2026
Job posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or if a sufficient number of applications are received .

Meet the Team

Isovalent, now part of Cisco, is the company founded by the creators of Cilium and eBPF. Cisco Isovalent builds open-source software and enterprise solutions solving networking, security, and observability needs for modern cloud native infrastructure. The flagship technology, Cilium, is the choice of numerous, industry-leading, global organizations.


Your Impact

The Customer Success Architect (CSA) team is a distributed team of subject matter experts Kubernetes, Cloud Native technologies and networking. The team is the primary of our customers' value realization with Cisco Isovalent Cilium Enterprise. CSAs engage daily with customers. They are thought leaders who bring their deep expertise in cloud native technologies to make sure our customers are running reliable production workloads. They are also great collaborators and problem solvers, not afraid of coordinating and engaging with multiple groups (engineering, partners, product, marketing etc...) to bring the best of Cisco Isovalent and our product with the help of our customers. Last, CSAs are great coaches, capable of distilling new concepts and technologies to our customers and presenting various solutions and their tradeoffs to our customers. Above all, CSAs are amazing teammates. In this role, you will

• Help our customers be successful with Cilium Enterprise
• Engage with assigned customer accounts to accelerate their value realization by designing, implementing and guiding production rollouts
• Build deep technical relationships with key customer stakeholders and be a trusted advisor
• Conduct workshops for customers on our existing and new product capabilities
• Bring your customer's domain knowledge to collaborate with engineering and support teams to unblock customer issues
• Help create workshops, training material, reference architectures, product documentations and any relevant artifact that would help us provide additional value to our customers, deepen their understanding of our technology and run the most reliably in production.
• Be continuously passionate about technology, an expert opinion and prior experience with Open Source Software (OSS), Kubernetes and cloud providers to build enterprise grade, scaled solutions solving networking, security, and observability needs for cloud native infrastructure.
• Hunger to learn leading technology and collaborate with world class technical talent

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's + 8 years of experience or Master's + 6 years of experience or equivalent industry experience
• 3+ years of experience in advanced Kubernetes architectural components and their relationships
• 3+ years of experience leading or playing a critical role in helping customers adopt Kubernetes and auxiliary cloud-native technologies at scale in production environments to include experience with at least one major cloud provider (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
• 3+ years of experience in networking knowledge, including in-depth experience with Kubernetes networking.

Preferred Qualifications

• Knowledge of best practices for operating systems security and their application in cloud-native technologies.
• Experience embedding monitoring in designed solutions and understanding the pillars of observability.
• Experience designing enterprise-grade Kubernetes-based systems.
• Familiarity with automation tools and technologies for repetitive tasks.

Why Cisco?

At Cisco, we're revolutionizing how data and infrastructure connect and protect organizations in the AI era - and beyond. We've been innovating fearlessly for 40 years to create solutions that power how humans and technology work together across the physical and digital worlds. These solutions provide customers with unparalleled security, visibility, and insights across the entire digital footprint.

Fueled by the depth and breadth of our technology, we experiment and create meaningful solutions. Add to that our worldwide network of doers and experts, and you'll see that the opportunities to grow and build are limitless. We work as a team, collaborating with empathy to make really big things happen on a global scale. Because our solutions are everywhere, our impact is everywhere.


We are Cisco, and our power starts with you.


Message to applicants applying to work in the U.S. and/or Canada:

The starting salary range posted for this position is $158,200.00 to $200,700.00 and reflects the projected salary range for new hires in this position in U.S. and/or Canada locations, not including incentive compensation*, equity, or benefits.

Individual pay is determined by the candidate's hiring location, market conditions, job-related skillset, experience, qualifications, education, certifications, and/or training. The full salary range for certain locations is listed below. For locations not listed below, the recruiter can share more details about compensation for the role in your location during the hiring process.

U.S. employees are offered benefits, subject to Cisco's plan eligibility rules, which include medical, dental and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution, paid parental leave, short and long-term disability coverage, and basic life insurance. Please see the Cisco careers site to discover more benefits and perks. Employees may be eligible to receive grants of Cisco restricted stock units, which vest following continued employment with Cisco for defined periods of time.

U.S. employees are eligible for paid time away as described below, subject to Cisco's policies:

• 10 paid holidays per full calendar year, plus 1 floating holiday for non-exempt employees
• 1 paid day off for employee's birthday, paid year-end holiday shutdown, and 4 paid days off for personal wellness determined by Cisco
• Non-exempt employees** receive 16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year, accrued at rate of 4.92 hours per pay period for full-time employees
• Exempt employees participate in Cisco's flexible vacation time off program, which has no defined limit on how much vacation time eligible employees may use (subject to availability and some business limitations)
• 80 hours of sick time off provided on hire date and each January 1st thereafter, and up to 80 hours of unused sick time carried forward from one calendar year to the next
• Additional paid time away may be requested to deal with critical or emergency issues for family members
• Optional 10 paid days per full calendar year to volunteer

For non-sales roles, employees are also eligible to earn annual bonuses subject to Cisco's policies.

Employees on sales plans earn performance-based incentive pay on top of their base salary, which is split between quota and non-quota components, subject to the applicable Cisco plan. For quota-based incentive pay, Cisco typically pays as follows:

• .75% of incentive target for each 1% of revenue attainment up to 50% of quota;
• 1.5% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 50% and 75%;
• 1% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 75% and 100%; and
• Once performance exceeds 100% attainment, incentive rates are at or above 1% for each 1% of attainment with no cap on incentive compensation.

For non-quota-based sales performance elements such as strategic sales objectives, Cisco may pay 0% up to 125% of target. Cisco sales plans do not have a minimum threshold of performance for sales incentive compensation to be paid.

The applicable full salary ranges for this position, by specific state, are listed below:

New York City Metro Area:
$158,200.00 - $241,700.00

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:
$140,600.00 - $241,800.00

* For quota-based sales roles on Cisco's sales plan, the ranges provided in this posting include base pay and sales target incentive compensation combined.

** Employees in Illinois, whether exempt or non-exempt, will participate in a unique time off program to meet local requirements.