Principal Corporate Counsel: Incubation & Enterprise AI

Cisco Systems, Inc.; Clegg (NC); On-site; USD 192,000 - 244,000; Full time

Job summary

Cisco Systems, Inc. is seeking a senior legal professional to support the IDA and Outshift teams, providing strategic counsel on technology, IP licensing, governance, and partnerships.

The role emphasizes cross-functional collaboration with incubation groups and external partners within a fast-paced, innovative environment. The ideal candidate holds a JD with 8+ years of experience and demonstrates exceptional drafting, negotiation, and analytical skills, with a proven ability to translate

Qualifications

• Juris Doctor with 8+ years of experience in a law firm or in-house legal department.
• Experience in product counseling, technology law and transactions, and IP licensing.
• Ability to synthesize complex, ambiguous regulatory landscapes into clear, business-centric advice.
• Exceptional drafting and negotiation skills with the ability to translate technical and legal concepts for executives and engineers.

Responsibilities

• Serve as a key legal partner to fast-paced incubation teams building innovative projects at Cisco.
• Provide dynamic legal guidance to teams collaborating with third parties to ideate, build, prototype, and evolve emerging technologies.
• Help ensure compliance by design, working cross-functionally within and outside of Legal.
• Provide agile legal guidance on joint development, partnerships, regulatory risk, IP and patent protection, data governance and privacy, and AI ethics and risk.
• Offer clear and actionable guidance on complex business and legal issues.
• Leverage and deploy AI to accelerate guidance to business teams you support.
• Enable clients to internally deploy, launch, and graduate innovations with trust and velocity.

Skills

Product counseling

Technology law

IP licensing

Analytical rigor

Executive communication

Education

Juris Doctor (JD)

Job description

The application window is expected to close on: 10/28/2026

Meet the Team

Join our dynamic and strategic Incubation, Data & AI (IDA) Legal team. This role is an exciting opportunity to join our growing team and provide critical legal support to Outshift by Cisco. Outshift is Cisco's emerging technology incubation engine and advanced innovation organization, with a core mission to explore, research, build, and bring "Shift-Left" and "Shift-Ahead" technologies to market before they hit mainstream adoption. Outshift leads Cisco's exploration and development of quantum networking technologies, under the umbrella of Cisco Research, and also includes the Open Source Program Office (OSPO). In this role, you will also provide legal support to Cisco's Enterprise AI Platforms & Infrastructure team, which leads Cisco's enterprise AI applications like CIRCUIT and MyAgent.

Your Impact

• You will serve as a key legal partner to fast-paced, dynamic incubation teams, focused on building and graduating (or otherwise offloading) truly innovative projects at Cisco.
• You will provide valuable, dynamic legal guidance to teams as they collaborate and partner with third parties to ideate, build, prototype, and evolve emerging technologies.
• You will help ensure compliance by design, working cross-functionally within and outside of Legal.
• You will work with other Legal subject-matter experts to provide agile legal guidance on a range of issues, including joint development and partnerships, regulatory risk, IP and patent protection, data governance and privacy, and AI ethics and risk.
• You will provide clear and actionable guidance on complex business and legal issues.
• You will leverage and deploy AI to accelerate and streamline guidance to the business teams you support.
• You will enable clients to internally deploy, launch, and graduate innovations in a way that builds trust with users and meets your clients' innovative velocity.

Minimum Qualifications

• Education & Experience: Juris Doctor (JD) with 8+ years of experience in a law firm or in-house legal department.
• Subject Matter Expertise: Demonstrated experience in product counseling, technology law and transactions, and IP licensing.
• Analytical Rigor: Ability to synthesize complex, ambiguous regulatory landscapes into clear, business-centric advice.
• Communication: Exceptional drafting and negotiation skills with the ability to translate nuanced technical and legal concepts into actionable guidance for executives and engineers.

Preferred Qualifications

• Specialized Experience: Experience serving as a legal counsel to dynamic and fast-paced product teams; general familiarity with open source legal issues, research agreements, brand protection and marketing issues.
• Intellectual Property: Background in IP and/or patent law.
• Certifications: External AI governance, privacy, or security certifications (e.g., AIGP, CIPP, CISSP).
• Team Dynamics: Experience working optimally in cross-functional, global teams.
• Adaptability: A proactive, "builder" mindset; comfortable working in a rapidly evolving environment.

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 $192,300.00 to $243,900.00 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