Principal Product Manager - AI Defense (Hyrbid)

020 Cisco Systems, Inc.; Milpitas (CA); Hybrid; USD 234,000 - 330,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental & vision insurance

401(k) with Cisco matching

Paid parental leave

Disability coverage

Life insurance

RSU grants

Job summary

Cisco Systems, Inc. in San Jose (hybrid) seeks a Principal Product Manager to define and execute the next generation of AI Security capabilities, owning a core area of the AI Defense portfolio.

You will drive strategy, customer adoption and cross-functional delivery across engineering, design, GTM and research teams to secure enterprise AI at scale. The role spans governance, runtime security, AI supply chain security and validation, shaping Cisco’s long-term AI security roadmap while

Qualifications

• Experience defining and delivering enterprise software or cloud platform products from strategy through GA.
• Experience building AI, cybersecurity, cloud, identity, networking, observability, or similar enterprise platform products.
• Prior experience leading cross-functional organizations across Engineering, UX, Marketing, Sales, Customer Success, and executive stakeholders.
• Experience influencing and securing executive alignment for product strategy, investment and roadmap prioritization through data-driven presentations and business cases.

Responsibilities

• Own the End-to-End Roadmap: Lead the multi-year vision, strategy and execution for a major AI Security product area from concept through production and lifecycle management.
• Prioritize Strategic Investments: Drive investment decisions, roadmap prioritization and tradeoffs across key AI Security domains (governance, application/runtime security and supply chain).
• Drive Cross-Functional Delivery: Partner with Engineering, Design, Threat Research and GTM teams to translate market threats and customer requirements into market-leading solutions.
• Scale Through Partnerships: Build and leverage strategic relationships with hyperscalers, AI platforms and developer ecosystems to drive competitive differentiation and platform adoption.
• Influence & Represent: Serve as a key internal influencer across Cisco’s Security and AI organizations and act as an external leader at executive meetings, industry conferences and analyst briefings.
• Foster Innovation: Cultivate deep customer, partner and analyst relationships to define enterprise workflows and cement Cisco as the trusted platform for secure AI.

Skills

Enterprise software product mgmt

AI/Security/Cloud platforms

Cross-functional leadership

Executive stakeholder alignment

Education

Bachelor/Master/PhD with extensive PM exp

Job description

The application window is expected to close on: 12/10/2026. This role is based in San Jose and requires to report into the office in a hybrid model.

Meet the Team Cisco’s AI Software & Platform Group builds enterprise AI platforms and developer tooling, integrating our networking, security and observability portfolio with modern AI to power autonomous systems.

We improve reinforcement learning, simulation and predictive analytics to make enterprise AI accurate, grounded, and trustworthy.

As a Principal Product Manager you will define and implement the next generation of AI Security capabilities. You will own a core area of the AI Defense portfolio, driving product strategy, customer adoption and cross-functional execution across engineering, design, go-to-market (GTM) and research teams.

The role focuses on building enterprise AI security capabilities spanning AI application security, agentic AI, runtime protection, AI governance, AI supply chain security and AI validation.

This individual will help shape Cisco’s long-term vision for securing enterprise AI while translating market opportunities into differentiated products that scale globally.

Your Impact

• Own the End-to-End Roadmap: Lead the multi-year vision, strategy and execution for a major AI Security product area from concept through production and lifecycle management.
• Prioritize Strategic Investments: Drive investment decisions, roadmap prioritization and tradeoffs across key AI Security domains (governance, application/runtime security and supply chain).
• Drive Cross-Functional Delivery: Partner with Engineering, Design, Threat Research and GTM teams to translate market threats and customer requirements into market-leading solutions.
• Scale Through Partnerships: Build and leverage strategic relationships with hyperscalers, AI platforms and developer ecosystems to drive competitive differentiation and platform adoption.
• Influence & Represent: Serve as a key internal influencer across Cisco’s Security and AI organizations and act as an external leader at executive meetings, industry conferences and analyst briefings.
• Foster Innovation: Cultivate deep customer, partner and analyst relationships to define enterprise workflows and cement Cisco as the trusted platform for secure AI.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelors + 15 years, or Masters + 12 years, or PhD + 8 years of related experience in Product Management.
• Experience defining and delivering enterprise software or cloud platform products from strategy through general availability (GA).
• Experience building AI, cybersecurity, cloud, identity, networking, observability, or similar enterprise platform products.
• Prior experience leading cross-functional organizations across Engineering, UX, Marketing, Sales, Customer Success, and executive stakeholders.
• Experience influencing and securing executive alignment for product strategy, investment and roadmap prioritization through data-driven presentations and business cases.

Preferred Qualifications

• Solid understanding of enterprise AI architectures, large language models (LLMs), AI agents, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), Model Context Protocol (MCP), AI governance and runtime security.
• Experience developing platform strategies spanning APIs, SDKs, marketplaces and ecosystem integrations.
• Track record of translating emerging technology trends into commercially successful product strategies.
• Experience working directly with Fortune 500 customers, strategic design partners and industry analysts.
• Ability to balance long-term platform strategy with near-term execution and customer delivery.
• Passion for building products that simplify enterprise adoption of AI while delivering measurable business outcomes.

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 $233,900.00 to $330,400.00 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.

Applicable Full Salary Ranges

• New York City Metro Area: $233,900.00 - $380,000.00
• Non-Metro New York state & Washington state: $220,900.00 - $344,300.00

Benefits and Perks

• medical, dental and vision insurance
• 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution
• paid parental leave
• short and long-term disability coverage
• basic life insurance
• grants of Cisco restricted stock units, which vest following continued employment with Cisco for defined periods of time

Please see the Cisco careers site to discover more benefits and perks.

Paid Time Away

• 10 paid holidays per full calendar year
• 1 floating holiday for non-exempt employees
• 1 paid day off for employee’s birthday
• paid year-end holiday shutdown
• 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 of unused sick time carried forward from one calendar year to 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

Bonuses

• 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.

Cisconians power the future. We make impact as a team, innovating fast and fearlessly to create meaningful solutions on a large scale. The depth and breadth of our technology doesn’t just benefit our customers – it also means limitless opportunities for us to experiment and learn. We understand the power each of our unique backgrounds bring when we work together. Because of that, we have a global network of thinkers, doers, experts and curious creators who help one another do their life’s best work.