Director, Solutions Engineer

Meet the team

You will be leading the "technical conscience" of the Cisco Security organization. You aren't just managing a team; you are shaping the future of how Cisco protects the digital footprint of our customers. You will work at the intersection of cutting-edge innovation and global business strategy, ensuring that our most brilliant minds are focused on the work that truly moves the needle.

Who You Are

We are looking for a highly technical, dynamic, high-impact leader to guide our most  senior global  technical cohort: our Principal and Distinguished Security Solutions Engineers. You will be a player-coach responsible for orchestrating the technical strategy that positions Cisco as the #1 Security provider. This role is not about day-to-day task management; it is about force multiplication and being a deep technical leader and evangelist and industry visionary. You will empower these elite architects to solve our customers’ most complex security challenges, influence product roadmaps, and drive the evolution of Secure Networking and Cross-Architecture motions across the global security landscape.

Your Impact

• Strategic Technical Orchestration: Partner with Business Unit (BU) leadership, Global Solutions Engineering, and Sales leadership to define the technical initiatives that optimize market share. You will translate high-level business goals into a concrete technical cross-architecture roadmap.

• Technical Governance & Influence: Work closely with product management, the solutions engineering field, and the Principal and Distinguished SE community. Ensure that the "real-world" insights gathered by your Distinguished/Principal team are directly influencing product features, improvements, and long-term GTM roadmaps.

• Incubation & Innovation: Lead the technical strategy for emerging secure networking and cross-architecture technologies. Mobilize your team to build the resources, tools, and processes (Demos, POVs, Workshops) that accelerate the adoption of transformative security solutions across the global team.  Work closely with Security Incubation, GTM, and Enablement teams.

• Mentorship of Elite Talent: Foster an environment of continuous learning and technical excellence. Provide the strategic framework and organizational support necessary for your team to tackle ambiguous, high-stakes problems.

• Thought Leadership & Executive Presence: Champion the team’s external presence as an evangelist and industry visionary. Drive engagement with executive-level customers, industry research bodies, and technical advisory groups to solidify Cisco’s reputation for technical differentiation. 

• Operational Rigor: Manage headcount, budget, and resource allocation. Ensure your team is aligned to the highest-value opportunities and that their impact is measurable through clear success metrics.

Minimum Qualifications 

• 10+ years of experience leading highly impactful, global technical sales teams.  

• Proven ability to lead, motivate and influence expert level technologists (Principal/Distinguished Solutions Engineers) who require autonomy, create innovation and evangelize next generation technologies. 

• Deep Cyber Security Expertise:  Mastery of enterprise, agentic, cloud, and security operations solutions (i.e. SASE, Hybrid Mesh Firewall, Identity, SIEM/SOAR, AI/Agentic Security, Frontier AI Models etc.).  

• Tested ability to lead deeply technical, consultative discussions while commanding the respect of industry leaders, in front of large audiences, across the partner ecosystem. 

• Strategic & Analytical Acumen:  Demonstrated ability to drive consistent, dynamic processes improvement while demonstrating value commercially. You thrive on ambiguity and can pivot team focus as market conditions evolve. 

• Cross-Functional Impact:  Exceptional ability to navigate a global matrixed organization. You must communicate, influence and partner with global stakeholders across Sales, Product, Finance, HR, and Engineering to drive successful outcomes both internally and externally. 

Preferred Qualifications: 

• Education: BA/BS in Engineering or Computer Science or commensurate experience 

• Tested executive communication skills including the ability to translate technology into business impact repeatably at scale. 

• Proven ability to lead and influence new product introduction, gather actionable customer feedback, ensure durable adoption and continuous improvement over time. 

• Significant experience engaging with large, complex customers and partners, over time, delivering measurable impact and differentiation. 

• World class presentation and communication skills exemplified at industry events on stage and in smaller consultative engagements. 

• Demonstrated ability to architect, evangelize and deliver world class security teams and solutions across multiple product areas and target verticals. 

• Hands-on experience with AI and AI security. 

• Track record of building and scaling measurably impactful SE programs including product demonstrations, workshops and proofs of value 

• Global experience leading complex, competitive technical sales strategy. 

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. 

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:

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:

* 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.