Director, AI Strategy & Productivity

Cisco Systems, Inc; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 286,000 - 364,000; Full time

Job summary

Cisco Systems, Inc is seeking a Director of AI Strategy & Productivity to partner with senior leaders and define a multi-year AI productivity roadmap. You will translate developer innovation into enterprise-grade capabilities, shaping incentives, governance, and tooling across the organization.

Lead the transformation to modern SDLC practices, quantify engineering throughput and economic value, and drive alignment across engineering, IT, security, and finance with a strong focus on trust and

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent in technical or business field.
• 15+ years in software engineering, developer platforms, or tech strategy.
• Experience with enterprise-scale software delivery modernization.
• Proven ability to influence VP/SVP-level partners and drive organizational change.
• Strategy background in modern SDLC and practical AI applications.

Responsibilities

• Distill long-range ambition into clear priorities and a multi-year AI productivity roadmap.
• Bridge bottom-up developer innovation with executive mandates through a flexible model.
• Create a rigorous framework to evaluate trade-offs and business impact.
• Influence external AI model providers and vendor roadmaps for ROI.
• Collaborate with Engineering, Product, IT, Legal, Security & Trust, and Finance.
• Lead a cross-functional community of practice to set tooling and governance standards.
• Design measurement frameworks to quantify throughput, code quality, and DevEx.
• Champion AI-first workforce with trust, accountability, and psychological safety.

Skills

Strategic leadership

Stakeholder management

Enterprise software strategy

Generative AI awareness

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Business, or related field

Master's or Ph.D. in Computer Science/Engineering or MBA

Job description

Cisco Systems, Inc is seeking a Director of AI Strategy & Productivity to partner with senior leaders and define a multi-year AI productivity roadmap. You will translate developer innovation into enterprise-grade capabilities, shaping incentives, governance, and tooling across the organization.

Lead the transformation to modern SDLC practices, quantify engineering throughput and economic value, and drive alignment across engineering, IT, security, and finance with a strong focus on trust and