Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Cisco is a leading technology company focused on revolutionizing data and infrastructure connectivity in the AI era. The Principal Product Management Engineer will define product strategies, lead cross-functional teams, and drive the product lifecycle for developer productivity and AI integrations.
Responsibilities
- Define and drive the strategy for internal engineering platforms and AI-driven productivity tools, ensuring alignment with broader business outcomes
- Own the end-to-end product lifecycle for developer productivity (CI/CD, build tooling, test infrastructure) and AI integrations (agentic assistants, model context protocols), balancing technical risks and business trade-offs
- Partner with engineering leads and platform teams to align priorities, unblock delivery, and translate user feedback into actionable, measurable requirements
- Lead the strategic direction for AI tooling, including build-vs-buy analysis, migration planning, and the creation of a skills/prompts marketplace to enable repeatable workflows
- Monitor engineering productivity and sentiment using DORA metrics and surveys to identify gaps and drive continuous improvement
- Represent Cisco in high-value forums and evangelize product vision across business units, sales teams, and the broader industry
- Foster an innovation culture through hackathons, conduct user research to improve UX, and manage clear communication regarding product roadmaps, feature releases, and deprecations
- Serve as a leader within the Product Management community, providing deep technical insight and shaping organizational strategy across portfolios
Skills
- Bachelors + 15 years of related experience, or Masters + 12 years of related experience
- Consistent track record delivering technical products within cloud platforms, SaaS, or infrastructure domains
- Demonstrated success in managing the full product lifecycle (definition, build, release, and iteration) for complex, distributed systems
- Consistent track record of driving delivery across engineering, operations, and business partners for large-scale platforms
- Proficiency in defining and tracking product metrics to advise prioritization and demonstrate business impact
- Familiarity with tools like GitLab, Jira, Confluence, and modern AI coding assistants (e.g., Claude Code, OpenAI Codex)
- Exceptional ability to navigate complex, evolving problem spaces and drive clarity for the team
- Strong partner management skills with the ability to align multi-functional teams without direct authority
- A deep passion for improving end-to-end user experiences through insight and design thinking
- Familiarity with automation, provisioning systems, and platform standardization initiatives
- Excellent ability to articulate complex technical strategies to both technical and executive audiences
Benefits
- Medical, dental and vision insurance
- A 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution
- Paid parental leave
- Short and long-term disability coverage
- Basic life insurance
- Employees may be eligible to receive grants of Cisco restricted stock units, which vest following continued employment with Cisco for defined periods of time
- 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
- Employees in Illinois, whether exempt or non-exempt, will participate in a unique time off program to meet local requirements
Company Overview
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