Cisco Networking is an industry leader providing intelligent network solutions for organizations to securely connect users, devices, applications, and workloads everywhere. We empower organizations everywhere – from local libraries to global hotels – to focus on their mission and have technology that simply works. Cisco has been named #2 Best Company to Work for in the U.S. by Fortune in 2024!
What We Are Looking ForAs a Lead Product Designer for AI Platform, you will be a strategic design leader driving unified, customer-centric experiences across Cisco’s most innovative and complex initiatives. Operating at the intersection of AI, Networking, and cross-BU collaboration, you will envision and deliver solutions that unify fractured user journeys and enable our next wave of intelligent product experiences. As a Design Lead you will bring your visual aesthetic and strategic storytelling to focus working through ambiguous challenges with up-and-coming technologies in order to amplify our products abilities, and deliver customer value through time savings and unique only Cisco insights.
In this role, you will develop and demonstrate deep domain knowledge, product expertise, and an understanding of complex customer use cases and deployment models. You’ll deeply understand the needs of our customers, set the vision for the product grounded in those needs, and partner with cross-functional teams to build it iteratively.
Our team's primary focus is on software, but we also find opportunities to collaborate with teams across the organization and think about how to improve the entire customer journey. Cisco Networking believes the quality of our products is dependent on the quality of our teams. We place a high value on nurturing the growth and development of everyone on our team. We give and get feedback early and often, share what we know, and learn from each other.
Responsibilities- Lead design by working through different modalities of interaction, including conversational & voice.
- Consider the entire user journey, look closely at problems today alongside opportunities in the future for intelligence to address existing problems more effectively and the underlying systems (AI/ML/GenAI) that support intelligent experiences.
- Craft intelligent solutions that drive efficiency in enterprise applications and as a result, surprise and delight. Identify the right problems to address, run and synthesize research, sketch and prototype solutions, make hi-fi visuals. Address complicated problems with simplified interaction patterns, with streamlined and consistent flows and visual design that extends and elevates the Cisco brand.
- Using lean UX methodologies, drive early discovery work, using findings to inform short, mid, long-term delivery roadmaps and requirements, then leading a team to those designs to life. Balance delivering progress to our customers, while working towards long term perfection.
- Thought beyond GUI. Worked closely with engineering and data science to consider how customer needs (including problems and opportunity areas) demand specific types of data, learning models, and other algorithmic equations to deliver against those customers needs.
- Work collaboratively across matrixed teams in collaboration. Build trust with cross-function partners by seeking out their points of view, collaborating regularly and inviting them into research and co-creation with the team and customers. Advocate for prioritization of user-centered product enhancements grounded in research and analysis.
- Present persuasively. Be able to tell the story of a project and build prototypes that precisely articulate design rationale.
- Provide direction to and mentor other designers; guide team to focus on the most important customer needs, difficulties and opportunities
- Think beyond your team's goals and consider how your work affects others and how you can influence other teams’ work.
- Influence the strategic vision and guide design of large, complex initiatives for a product, program or strategic effort of considerable size and scope.
- Translate what may start as ambiguous business needs into clear customer-focused solutions.
- Facilitate workshops, sketching and prototyping sessions; build documentation and templates that enable others to consume and contribute.
- 12+ years of professional experience designing and delivering technically complicated enterprise or consumer products with cross-functional teams from strategy to delivery.
- A portfolio full of great case studies and even better prototypes, including case studies leveraging AI research and design tools.
- Expertise and experience designing for AI products and/or features.
- Repeated history of simplifying complicated customer journeys and systems. Strong persuasive storytelling and influence, visual design skills, and a highly polished level of craft. Examples where generative research drove north star opportunities, and brought them to customers through iterative releases, where you worked to influence cross domain partnerships with customers needs.
- Knowledge of the networking domain or experience in a related product or field is a plus.
- Experience working on technically complex B2B enterprise products.
- Aligned teams around customer-centered design decisions, using UX methodologies and tools (double-diamond, personas, journey mapping, dual agile, lean ux, prototypes), and influenced adoption by those who aren’t familiar with strategic UX engagements.
- A proven track record of shipping large scale enterprise products.
- Ability to see the bigger picture, while zooming in to rationalize and perfect the nuanced details.
- Made complex problems and workflows feel simple and approachable.
- Balanced strategic research and discovery with shipping often.
- Persuasive storytelling and influence.
- Lead and mentored junior UX designers, fostering a collaborative and innovative design culture within the team.
Does this sound like you? We’d love to hear from you!
Please include a link to your online portfolio. Only those applications that include portfolios will be considered.
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. Simply put – we power the future.
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:
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.
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