Product Manager (AI/ML)

Cisco Systems, Inc.; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 130,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Cisco Systems, Inc. is seeking a Product Manager for the Collaboration AI group, focusing on Speech AI (ASR, TTS) within Webex. You will lead cross-functional teams of ML experts and engineers to define, design and launch AI-powered features aligned with the product roadmap.

You will translate requirements into technical specs, manage the full lifecycle from concept to launch, and balance technical constraints with business goals while staying attuned to competitive and emerging AI trends.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of product management experience.
• 3+ years of experience in AI/ML domain.
• 3+ years of experience in program/project management.
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in computer science, Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• 3+ years of strong analytical and quantitative skills, ability to use data and metrics to back up assumptions and evaluate outcomes.
• 3+ years of strong proficiency of Jira and Confluence

Responsibilities

• Drive design, development and launch of features in our AI/ML product strategy and roadmap ensuring prioritization based on market trends, customer feedback, and business goals.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with engineers, data scientists, and other stakeholders to define, design, and deliver AI/ML powered solutions focusing on Speech AI and automatic speech recognition.
• Define and translate product requirements into detailed technical specifications and user stories, ensuring alignment with business objectives.
• Lead the full product lifecycle - from conception, design, and development, through to launch and ongoing performance tracking.
• Maintain a deep understanding of the competitive landscape and emerging technologies, contributing to strategic decisions.
• Manage and mitigate project risks, ensuring timely delivery of AI/ML features and applications.

Skills

Product management

AI/ML domain

Program/project management

Analytical skills

Education

Bachelor's or Master’s in CS/Engineering

Tools

Jira

Confluence

Job description

Collaboration AI is the team responsible for building ML-based intelligent experiences within Cisco's Webex portfolio of enterprise collaboration and customer engagement platforms. The team is made up of four AI acquisitions and includes technology such as Automatic speech recognition (ASR) from Voicea, Audio quality enhancement from BabbleLabs, natural language processing (NLP) and computer vision (CV) from MindMeld, employee network graphs and personal profiles from Accompany, and much more.

This role is mainly focused on Speech AI as it pertains to automatic speech recognition (ASR), text to speech (TTS) and other technologies. Speech AI is core to the wide range of products within Webex including Meetings, Contact Center, Calling and others. Every day, we work tirelessly as a cross functional team of engineers, product managers, data scientists, linguists, and others to build the best-in-class technologies in Speech AI. Our goal is to enable a more productive and inclusive meeting experience leveraging AI/ML to empower people to engage and innovate -- anywhere, on any device.

Who You'll Work With

As a Product Manager in the Collaboration AI group, you'll join a high-caliber team of machine learning specialists, large scale systems experts, NLP, ASR and computer vision experts, product gurus, customer champions, and world-class designers who are passionate about the future brought by AI. We move fast, continuously improve, and deliver high-impact results. We're highly collaborative, committed to building great things, and consider it a privilege to learn from each other every day.

Who You Are

• Drive design, development and launch of features in our AI/ML product strategy and roadmap ensuring prioritization based on market trends, customer feedback, and business goals.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with engineers, data scientists, and other stakeholders to define, design, and deliver AI/ML powered solutions specifically focusing on Speech AI and automatic speech recognition.
• Define and translate product requirements into detailed technical specifications and user stories, ensuring alignment with business objectives.
• Lead the full product lifecycle - from conception, design, and development, through to launch and ongoing performance tracking.
• Maintain a deep understanding of the competitive landscape and emerging technologies, contributing to strategic decisions.
• Manage and mitigate project risks, ensuring timely delivery of AI/ML features and applications.
• Facilitate effective decision-making throughout the project lifecycle, balancing technology constraints, business needs, and user experience.
• Define sprint planning and prioritization in alignment with product strategy/roadmap and track ENG workstreams in Jira.
• Craft project status reporting and deliver executive briefings to update program stakeholders.
• Develop strong working relationships with cross functional teams to best understand and deliver on business goals and priorities.

Required Qualifications:

• 5+ years of product management experience.
• 3+ years of experience in AI/ML domain.
• 3+ years of experience in program/project management
• Bachelors or Masters degree in computer science, Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• 3+ years of strong analytical and quantitative skills, ability to use data and metrics to back up assumptions and evaluate outcomes.
• 3+ years of strong proficiency of Jira and Confluence

Preferred Qualifications:

• Excellent interpersonal skills, with the ability to communicate complex concepts clearly and persuasively across different audiences and varying levels of the organization.
• Demonstrated ability to understand and discuss technical concepts, manage trade-offs, and evaluate opportunistic new ideas with internal and external partners.
• Strong attention to detail and exceptional documentation skills
• Proven leadership capabilities and program management skills, including managing multiple projects and resources concurrently.
• Experience in voice, IVR or voicebot technologies and capabilities.
• Solid understanding of Generative AI, Machine Learning, and Natural Language Processing.

Why Cisco?

#WeAreCisco. We are all unique, but collectively we bring our talents to work as a team, to develop innovative technology and power a more inclusive, digital future for everyone. How do we do it? Well, for starters - with people like you!

Nearly every internet connection around the world touches Cisco. We're the Internet's optimists. Our technology makes sure the data travelling at light speed across connections does so securely, yet it's not what we make but what we make happen which marks us out. We're helping those who work in the health service to connect with patients and each other; schools, colleges, and universities to teach in even the most challenging of times. We're helping businesses of all shapes and size to connect with their employees and customers in new ways, providing people with access to the digital skills they need and connecting the most remote parts of the world - whether through 5G, or otherwise.

We tackle whatever challenges come our way. We have each other's backs, we recognize our accomplishments, and we grow together. We celebrate and support one another - from big and small things in life to big career moments. And giving back is in our DNA (we get 10 days off each year to do just that).

We know that powering an inclusive future starts with us. Because without diversity and a dedication to equality, there is no moving forward. Our 30 Inclusive Communities, that bring people together around commonalities or passions, are leading the way. Together we're committed to learning, listening, caring for our communities, whilst supporting the most vulnerable with a collective effort to make this world a better place either with technology, or through our actions.

So, you have colorful hair? Don't care. Tattoos? Show off your ink. Like polka dots? That's cool. Pop culture geek? Many of us are. Passion for technology and world changing? Be you, with us! #WeAreCisco

#ProjectAI