Customer Delivery Architect

Cisco; Richardson (TX); On-site; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Cisco seeks a Customer Delivery Architect to define and lead enterprise-scale architectures for the most demanding customers. You will work with customer leaders, Cisco teams, and partners to set technology roadmaps, guide migrations, and ensure scalable, secure deployments across environments.

You will influence technology strategy, assess AI and automation opportunities, and build capability across teams while aligning with business priorities and risk management.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree plus 12 years of related experience, or
• Master's degree plus 8 years of related experience, or
• PhD plus 5 years of related experience, or
• Expert level (e.g., CCIE) or equivalent certification expected

Responsibilities

• Define enterprise-scale architectures and multi-year roadmaps across Cisco and third-party technologies.
• Lead large, high-impact initiatives from architecture to execution across multiple organizations.
• Evaluate cross-architecture challenges, assess tradeoffs, and drive removal of barriers.
• Translate business priorities into architectural recommendations for executives and teams.
• Assess AI, automation, and emerging tech for measurable value and scalable deployment.
• Influence Cisco strategy by translating customer needs into actionable input for teams.
• Develop architects and engineers, promoting reusable practices and consistent delivery.
• Represent Cisco expertise to executive and industry audiences at events.

Skills

Architectural leadership

Strategic communications

Cross-functional collaboration

Customer-facing strategy

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master's degree

PhD

Expert level certification (e.g., CCIE)

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.

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.