Engineering Program Manager

About this role

The application window is expected to close on: 08/24/2026 Job posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or if a sufficient number of applications are received .

Meet the Team You will join a team building complex, cloud-native SaaS and AI-powered products that move from concept through production launch, adoption, and ongoing operation. The team works across product management, engineering, applied AI/ML, data, infrastructure, security, compliance, customer experience, and go-to-market partners to deliver customer-ready capabilities at scale. This is a highly multi-functional environment where transparency, execution, rigor, and strong partnership are critical to success. The work is fast-moving, and focused on delivering enterprise-grade products and AI capabilities that are reliable, secure, and built for real-world adoption. Your Impact As a Technical Program Manager, you will lead sophisticated SaaS and AI-powered product initiatives from strategy through production delivery and operation. You will bring structure to ambiguous programs and drive alignment across large, multi-functional teams. • Turn product and technical strategy into clear plans, milestones, dependencies, success metrics, and ownership across teams.

• Lead large programs with moderate to high risk, multiple interdependencies, and impact across customers, partners, platforms, and releases.

• Lead programs spanning product, engineering, design, data, applied AI/ML, infrastructure, security, compliance, customer experience, and go-to-market teams.

• Influence product and technical roadmaps by managing critical paths, sequencing, architecture dependencies, delivery tradeoffs, risks, resources, and commitments.

• Lead agentic AI programs from definition through production and iteration, coordinating agent workflows, model and tool integration, grounding, evaluations, guardrails, observability, and human oversight.

• Establish evaluation-driven delivery practices so AI quality, safety, latency, cost, and reliability are measured before launch and monitored in production.

• Partner with engineering and quality teams to define validation, release, observability, and operational-readiness requirements for continuous integration and deployment.

• Communicate program status, technical tradeoffs, risks, and decisions to executive audiences with clear recommendations.

• Provide guidance and mentorship to other program managers and team members while driving a strategic horizon of one year or more.

Minimum Qualifications • Bachelor’s degree with 8+ years of related experience, Master’s degree with 6+ years of related experience, or PhD with 3+ years of related experience.

• Experience leading complex technical programs for enterprise SaaS products through production launch and ongoing operation.

• Experience directly leading at least one generative AI, LLM-based, or agentic capability through development, production launch, and post-launch iteration.

• Previous experience leading cross-functional technical programs through influence in a highly matrixed organization.

• Experience in cloud platforms, APIs, distributed systems, data systems, and modern AI development and deployment practices.

Preferred Qualifications • Experience leading multi-team SaaS or AI programs involving cloud-native architecture, API integrations, data platforms, AI evaluations, security, reliability, and customer-facing production launches.

• Experience with generative AI and agentic systems, including agent orchestration, tool use, retrieval-augmented generation, evaluation frameworks, guardrails, observability, and human-in-the-loop workflows.

• Ability to understand system architecture, identify cross-platform dependencies, facilitate engineering tradeoffs, and translate complex technical risks and decisions for executive audiences.

• Experience applying fit-for-purpose development and execution practices, including Agile methodologies, to improve planning, decision-making, delivery, and learning.

• Strong ability to bring structure to ambiguous initiatives, drive timely decisions, and create accountability across product, engineering, security, compliance, customer experience, and go-to-market stakeholders.

Why Cisco?  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. 

Message to applicants applying to work in the U.S. and/or Canada:

The starting salary range posted for this position is $171,600.00 to $245,000.00 and reflects the projected salary range for new hires in this position in U.S. and/or Canada locations, not including incentive compensation*, equity, or benefits. 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

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