Senior Director of Engineering

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The application window is expected to close on: June 1st 1 PM ET 2025

Job posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or if a sufficient number of applications are received.

Meet the Team

The Innovation team within Cisco's Infrastructure and Security Group incubates brand new technologies at the intersection of security, networking, silicon, and optics. Our mission: to enable the world to connect with confidence on any device, anywhere, anytime.

This team is responsible for delivering innovations such as the Cisco Smart Switch and is now focused on scaling Cisco Hypershield, a next-generation security platform designed with AI from the ground up. Hypershield protects applications, devices, and data across public and private data centers, clouds, and physical locations—anywhere our customers need security.

We are seeking a Senior Director of Engineering to own the architecture, long-range technical vision, and execution for Cisco Hypershield. This is a pivotal leadership role responsible for scaling the engineering organization from seed-stage velocity to $100M+ ARR, in close collaboration with executive leadership, product management, and strategic customers.

Your Impact

You are a leader with deep technical skills in distributed systems, cloud SaaS and high-speed networking, able to combine deep product architecture expertise with a proven track record of scaling an engineering organization for rapid growth. You are comfortable in design discussions with architects and engineers. You can review architecture designs and solutions, providing feedback that will help your team members gain alignment. You are not afraid to be constantly learning, leading a team that is using innovative programming languages, AI technologies, and modern tooling to deliver groundbreaking new features at rapid speed.

Reporting directly to the CTO of the Security and Infrastructure Group, you will lead the engineering charter for Cisco Hypershield and associated next-generation, AI-powered security products.

• Scale and lead a 40+ person globally distributed engineering team, instilling clear goals, a servant-leadership culture, and resilient DevOps practices
• Manage the strategy and day-to-day work of the Hypershield team
• Lead the integration of Hypershield into Cisco's Smart Hardware family (e.g., Smart Switch)
• Champion AI-powered security co-pilot initiatives combining real-time telemetry, RAG-based LLMs, and analytics at billions-of-events-per-day scale
• Identify and solve obstacles to product-market fit, growth, and operational scalability

Minimum Qualifications:

• Demonstrable experience building production-grade software, including 10+ years scaling and leading engineering orgs across startup and Fortune-100 environments.
• Demonstrated ability to hire, mentor and retain top-tier engineering talent while driving a high-performance culture.
• Deep technical chops in network security, SD-WAN and carrier-grade routing/switching (e.g., Cisco ASR9K), plus cloud-native SaaS experience at global scale.
• AI/ML leader with a track record of shipping data-driven security or networking features powered by modern LLMs and large-scale analytics.
• Consistent record of shipping multi-billion-dollar hardware platforms (e.g., ASR9K) and taking green-field cloud services from zero to GA/production.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Production experience in C, Go, P4, JavaScript/TypeScript, and modern DevOps/CI-CD pipelines.
• Practitioner of Agile, lean and GitOps methodologies; comfortable iterating at startup velocity.
• Experience with broader Cisco product portfolio, partner ecosystem and internal processes.
• BS/MS or equivalent experience in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering or related field.
• 10+ issued patents in networking, cloud or security domains.

#WeAreCisco where every individual brings their unique skills and perspectives together to pursue our purpose of powering an inclusive future for all.

Our passion is connection—we celebrate our employees' diverse set of backgrounds and focus on unlocking potential. Cisconians often experience one company, many careers where learning and development are encouraged and supported at every stage. Our technology, tools, and culture pioneered hybrid work trends, allowing all to not only give their best, but be their best.

We understand our outstanding opportunity to bring communities together and at the heart of that is our people. One-third of Cisconians collaborate in our 30 employee resource organizations, called Inclusive Communities, to connect, foster belonging, learn to be informed allies, and make a difference. Dedicated paid time off to volunteer—80 hours each year—allows us to give back to causes we are passionate about, and nearly 86% do!

Our purpose, driven by our people, is what makes us the worldwide leader in technology that powers the internet. Helping our customers reimagine their applications, secure their enterprise, transform their infrastructure, and meet their sustainability goals is what we do best. We ensure that every step we take is a step towards a more inclusive future for all. Take your next step and be you, with us!

Message to applicants applying to work in the U.S. and/or Canada: When available, the salary range posted for this position reflects the projected hiring range for new hire, full-time salaries in U.S. and/or Canada locations, not including equity or benefits. For non-sales roles the hiring ranges reflect base salary only; employees are also eligible to receive annual bonuses. Hiring ranges for sales positions include base and incentive compensation target. Individual pay is determined by the candidate's hiring location and additional factors, including but not limited to skillset, experience, and relevant education, certifications, or training. Applicants may not be eligible for the full salary range based on their U.S. or Canada hiring location. The recruiter can share more details about compensation for the role in your location during the hiring process.

U.S. employees have access to quality medical, dental and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution, short and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance and numerous wellbeing offerings.

Employees receive up to twelve paid holidays per calendar year, which includes one floating holiday (for non-exempt employees), plus a day off for their birthday. Non-Exempt new hires accrue up to 16 days of vacation time off each year, at a rate of 4.92 hours per pay period. Exempt new hires participate in Cisco's flexible Vacation Time Off policy, which does not place a defined limit on how much vacation time eligible employees may use, but is subject to availability and some business limitations. All new hires are eligible for Sick Time Off subject to Cisco's Sick Time Off Policy and will have eighty (80) hours of sick time off provided on their hire date and on January 1st of each year thereafter. Up to 80 hours of unused sick time will be carried forward from one calendar year to the next such that the maximum number of sick time hours an employee may have available is 160 hours. Employees in Illinois have a unique time off program designed specifically with local requirements in mind. All employees also have access to paid time away to deal with critical or emergency issues. We offer additional paid time to volunteer and give back to the community.

Employees on sales plans earn performance-based incentive pay on top of their base salary, which is split between quota and non-quota components. 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 up to 125% of target. Cisco sales plans do not have a minimum threshold of performance for sales incentive compensation to be paid.