Director, Product - AI Infrastructure

Cisco is seeking a highly skilled and dedicated Director to lead a critical AI infrastructure program within the Middle East, such as our partnerships with Humain. This role will be an integral part of the AI Infrastructure team, responsible for driving Cisco's product solutions, running the day-to-day relationship, and supervising all technical and operational aspects of a specific, high-profile AI project. The ideal candidate will possess a strong technical background in hyperscale environments and AI workloads, coupled with validated experience navigating and succeeding within the local business and cultural landscape of the Middle East.

Product Solution & Portfolio Leadership: Drive the adoption and integration of Cisco's comprehensive product portfolio (hardware, software, and services) to meet the unique technical and operational demands of AI infrastructure within sovereign cloud environments. This includes understanding and influencing product roadmaps across various organizations such as AI networking, AI compute, Optics, CHG (Common Hardware Group), Security, and more.

Technical & Operational Expertise: Apply deep technical and operational understanding of hyperscale cloud environments, AI infrastructure, and advanced networking to the program. This includes:

• Understanding AI workload requirements, including GPU consumption and the shift from InfiniBand (IB) to Ethernet Back-End (BE) networks.

• Ability to document and analyze the customer's network architecture (Front-End, Back-End, Backbone) and identify Cisco's positioning and opportunities.

• Awareness of driven solutions and the ability to articulate Cisco's value proposition within the program context.

• Program Leadership & Execution: Lead the successful planning, execution, and delivery of a designated strategic AI infrastructure program (e.g., Humain), ensuring alignment with customer requirements and Cisco's strategic objectives.

• Customer Relationship Management: Serve as the main point of contact for the assigned customer program, building and maintaining strong, trusted relationships with key technical and operational partners. Understand their evolving needs and translate them into actionable plans for Cisco.

• Multi-functional Coordination: Facilitate seamless teamwork across various Cisco internal teams, including engineering, sales, product management, and services, to ensure timely and effective delivery of solutions for the assigned program. Create vital forums for opportunity identification and issue resolution.

• Opportunity & Prioritization: Identify and assess new opportunities within the assigned program, bringing together both successes and lessons learned from any lost opportunities. Prioritize program activities and technical requirements to increase impact and strategic imperative.

• Communication & Influence: Effectively communicate sophisticated technical and program-related information to both technical and non-technical audiences, influencing decisions and driving consensus within the program.

• Senior Product Leadership: 10+ years of dynamic experience in program management, technical sales, solutions architecture, or product management within the networking, ASIC, or network software domains, with a consistent track record of leading large-scale, complex technology programs.

• Deep Technical Competence: Extensive technical and operational understanding of hyperscale cloud environments, AI infrastructure, and data center networking, including: experience with network/ASIC product management and/or network software product management.

• Validated knowledge of the shift to Ethernet Back-End networks and GPU-centric architectures for AI workloads.

• Ability to analyze and understand complex network topologies (FE, BE, BB).

• Customer Engagement: Excellent customer-facing skills, including presentation abilities and a strong focus on building and maintaining relationships with key customer partners.

• In-Region Expertise: Demonstrated experience working within the Middle East region, with a strong understanding of local business practices, cultural nuances, and regulatory environments.

• Multi-functional Teamwork: Validated ability to coordinate and drive efforts across diverse internal teams within a large, matrixed organization to achieve program objectives.

• Problem-Solving: Strong critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making abilities in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.

• Communication & Influence: Superior communication, presentation, and influencing skills, capable of engaging effectively with technical leaders and senior management.

• Operational Rigor: Experience with project management methodologies and tools (e.g., JIRA) to track and run program progress effectively.

• Cisco Internal Knowledge: Familiarity with Cisco's internal development methodologies and NPI (New Product Introduction) lifecycle.

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 ofunused sick timecarried forwardfrom one calendar yearto 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.