Customer Delivery Architect

Cisco; North Carolina; On-site; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

The Customer Delivery Architect at Cisco in North Carolina leads enterprise-scale architectural initiatives for major customers, shaping target-state designs and roadmaps across Cisco and partner technologies.

You will collaborate with customer technology leaders and Cisco teams to translate business priorities into actionable architectures, guide implementations, assess risks, and drive measurable value through AI, automation, and integrated solutions.

Qualifications

• Bachelors plus 12+ years of related experience, or Masters 8+ years, or PhD 5+ years.
• Expert level (e.g., CCIE) or equivalent certification expected.
• Strong enterprise architecture and cross-organization leadership experience.

Responsibilities

• Define and shape enterprise-scale architectures across Cisco and third-party tech.
• Steer large initiatives from vision to execution, coordinating across orgs.
• Evaluate cross-architecture options, dependencies, security, and scalability.
• Advise executives on technology strategy and business priorities.
• Lead AI, automation, and emerging tech integration for measurable value.
• Build capability by mentoring architects and engineers.

Skills

Enterprise architecture

Technical leadership

Strategic guidance

Cross-organization coordination

AI & automation

Networking & security

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master's degree

PhD

CCIE certification

Tools

Nexus NX-OS

Nexus 9K

Splunk

Nexus Dashboard Insights

ThousandEyes

Job description

The Customer Delivery Architect has a deep and broad architectural expertise across technology architectures and is a recognized technical authority for defining and leading architecture strategy for Cisco's largest and most sophisticated customers. The role combines expertise across an enterprise technology domains with an expansive understanding of enterprise architecture, business priorities, and technology operations to guide technology decisions and deliver solutions at scale.

The Architect works directly with customer technology leaders, engineers, Cisco teams, and partners to define architectures and technology roadmaps that address requirements while preparing for future business and technology needs. This includes evaluating architectural options and tradeoffs; defining target-state architectures; guiding design, integration, migration, and implementation; and identifying technical, operational, and business risks.

The role provides leadership across highly integrated customer environments that may span cross-architecture environments, observability, automation, AI, data platforms, and technologies. The Architect establishes architectural direction across these domains and ensures that individual technology decisions work together as a coherent enterprise architecture.

As an architectural authority and leader, the CDA leads multidisciplinary and cross-vendor teams through complex programs and critical technical decisions. The role works across Cisco's technical, business, and services organizations, Customer Success, partners, and customer organizations to resolve architectural issues, remove technical barriers, and maintain alignment from strategy through implementation and adoption.

The Architect also helps customers evaluate and integrate new technologies, including AI and intelligent automation, where they provide clear technical or business value. This requires assessing architectural readiness, integration requirements, security, operational impact, risk, and scalability rather than deploying technology for its own sake.

Success in this role is measured by the quality and adaptability of the architecture, successful execution of advanced technology programs, reduction of technical and operational risk, customer adoption and realized value, and the Architect's ability to influence technical direction within the customer and Cisco.

What You'll Do

• Define and shape enterprise-scale architectures for technically demanding environments, establishing target-state designs, standards, integration patterns, and multi-year roadmaps across Cisco and third-party technologies.
• Steer large, high-impact initiatives from architectural vision to execution, guiding critical decisions and coordinating resources across Cisco, customer, and provider organizations, regions, and business units.
• Evaluate and resolve intricate cross-architecture challenges, assessing alternatives, dependencies, scalability, security, operational considerations, and tradeoffs to remove barriers and improve customer outcomes.
• Serve as a technology strategist to customer executives and technology leaders, translating business priorities into clear recommendations and presenting choices, costs, implications, and consequences that support critical decisions.
• Assess and integrate AI, automation, and emerging technologies where they deliver measurable value, considering architectural fit, dependencies, governance, operational implications, and scalability.
• Influence Cisco technology and services strategy through customer insight, identifying recurring requirements, capability gaps, and emerging needs and translating them into actionable input for internal teams.
• Build technical capability across Cisco and customer teams by developing architects and engineers, establishing reusable practices and knowledge, and promoting consistency across engagements.
• Represent Cisco expertise with executive and industry audiences, providing expertise to strategic customer engagements, technical forums, Cisco Live, and relevant industry events.

Ideal candidate should have expertise in several of the areas below

• Routing & Switching: Nexus/NX-OS, SD-WAN, and Substation/OT Networking.
• Security & Policy: Cisco ISE, SD-WAN Security/Policy, and Out-of-Band (OOB) Management Security.
• Wireless & Collaboration: Meraki design, WLAN, and Cloud-managed Contact Center solutions.
• Contact Center: Healthcare, Observability, and AI. Business Alignment, Data Analytics, Splunk Positioning, Technical Leadership.
• Monitoring & Analytics: Nexus Dashboard Insights, Splunk, Thousand Eyes, and Cisco IQ.
• Data Center: TCAM management and Nexus 9K architecture.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelors + 12 years of related experience, or
• Masters + 8 years of related experience, or
• PhD + 5 years of related experience, or
• Expert level (e.g., CCIE) or equivalent relevant certification expected

Preferred Qualifications

• Technical mastery in core architectures with extensive expertise across the enterprise technology landscape, including demonstrated ability to integrate Cisco and third-party technologies into cohesive, scalable solutions.
• Proven architectural authority in large, highly integrated customer environments, including defining long-term technology strategy, establishing architectural direction, and resolving critical cross-architecture challenges.
• Demonstrated experience leading enterprise-scale technology initiatives, maintaining architectural integrity and influencing critical decisions across multiple organizations, technology disciplines, and business units.
• Established credibility with executive and technology leaders, translating business priorities and highly technical concepts into clear strategies, recommendations, tradeoffs, and outcomes.
• Recognized technical influence within and beyond the immediate customer engagement, demonstrated through developing experienced technical resources, shaping technology or services direction, establishing reusable architecture practices, or representing technical expertise with executive and industry audiences.