Intake Product Manager, Cisco Validated

Cisco Systems, Inc; North Carolina; On-site; USD 139,000 - 201,000; Full time

Job summary

Cisco Systems, Inc. is seeking a Product Manager for Cisco Validated Intake. You will serve as the central intake point for strategic requests, guiding them through validation gates and maintaining the CV roadmap.

You will partner with Cisco Validated TMEs and stakeholders to ensure requests are defined, aligned to priorities, and ready for review. You will translate opportunities into actionable validation recommendations, drive discovery with stakeholders, and coordinate cross-functional

Qualifications

• 8+ years in product management or related cross-functional roles.
• Experience managing intake, stage-gate progression, and lifecycle progression.
• Ability to translate ambiguous requests into opportunities and recommendations.
• Experience guiding cross-functional work across product, engineering, marketing, architecture, sales, and leadership.
• Strong communication and strategic thinking skills.

Responsibilities

• Manage the central intake, triage, and prioritization of Cisco Validated opportunities.
• Conduct discovery with stakeholders to clarify the opportunity, intended outcome, strategic alignment, customer or field value, and required capabilities.
• Translate qualified requests into validation recommendations with clear scope, owners, success criteria, evidence expectations, dependencies, exclusions, and target outputs.
• Guide opportunities through the Cisco Validated intake and validation gates, preparing review materials and tracking actions.
• Maintain the Cisco Validated roadmap from intake through gate progression, validation execution, publication, and lifecycle review.
• Coordinate cross-functional handoffs and maintain visibility as approved work moves through execution and publication.
• Improve intake practices, gate criteria, templates, and operating mechanisms based on lessons learned.

Skills

Product management

Portfolio management

Cross-functional collaboration

Stakeholder discovery

Roadmap planning

Communication skills

Gate processes

Strategic alignment

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master’s degree

Job description

Preferred candidates should be located in Raleigh, NC or Atlanta, CA or San Jose, CA.

Meet the Team

Join Cisco Validated, the team responsible for turning Cisco's integrated technology strategy into field-credible, evidence-backed proof. Cisco Validated has long helped customers, partners, and field teams deploy with confidence through tested designs, deployment guidance, and validated architectures. As Cisco's portfolio becomes more integrated, the team is evolving to validate not only individual designs, but also the cross-portfolio outcomes Cisco presents to the market.

As Product Manager, Cisco Validated Intake, you will serve as a central intake point for strategic and technical requests. You will help cross-functional stakeholders clarify opportunities, assess alignment to Cisco Validated priorities, maintain the CV roadmap, and prepare work for progression through the validation gates.

Your Impact

As Product Manager, Cisco Validated Intake, you will expand Cisco Validated's capacity to identify and develop cross-portfolio validation opportunities. You will help stakeholders clarify the opportunity, intended outcome, strategic alignment, customer or field value, and required capabilities.

You will translate qualified opportunities into actionable validation recommendations and guide them through the Cisco Validated gates. Your work will maintain a clear roadmap of candidate and active initiatives, improve visibility into priorities and dependencies, and help the team focus its technical resources on the highest-value opportunities.

You will partner with Cisco Validated TMEs and cross-functional stakeholders to ensure requests are sufficiently defined, aligned to Cisco Validated priorities, and ready for review. Responsibilities include:

• Manage the central intake, triage, and prioritization of Cisco Validated opportunities.
• Conduct discovery with stakeholders to clarify the opportunity, intended outcome, strategic alignment, customer or field value, and required capabilities.
• Translate qualified requests into validation recommendations with clear scope, owners, success criteria, evidence expectations, dependencies, exclusions, and target outputs.
• Guide opportunities through the Cisco Validated intake and validation gates, preparing review materials, coordinating stakeholder input, and tracking actions and decisions.
• Maintain the Cisco Validated roadmap from initial intake through gate progression, validation execution, publication, and lifecycle review.
• Coordinate cross-functional handoffs and maintain visibility as approved work moves through execution and publication.
• Improve intake practices, gate criteria, templates, and operating mechanisms based on lessons learned.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree with 8+ years of industry experience or Master’s degree with 4+ years of industry experience.
• 8+ years of experience in product management, product operations, portfolio management, technical operations, or related cross-functional roles.
• Experience managing formal intake, prioritization, stage-gate progression, and lifecycle progression for complex initiatives.
• Experience translating ambiguous requests into clear opportunities, recommendations, scopes, outcomes, dependencies, and decision points.
• Experience guiding cross-functional work across product, engineering, technical marketing, architecture, sales, content, or leadership stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

• Technical fluency with complex technology portfolios, preferably including the Cisco portfolio.
• Demonstrated ability to operate effectively in ambiguous, fast-moving environments with shifting priorities and cross-functional dependencies.
• Strong communication skills, including the ability to synthesize complex information into clear recommendations, actions, and status updates.
• Working knowledge of the Cisco portfolio and cross-portfolio solution initiatives.
• Experience supporting product discovery, portfolio prioritization, or roadmap planning.
• Proven ability to influence without direct authority across product, technical, content, sales, and leadership 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 $139,200.00 to $201,400.00 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 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:

$171,600.00 - $281,800.00

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:

$151,300.00 - $250,900.00

* 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.