Senior Director AI Strategy & Engineering Productivity

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

Job summary

Cisco Systems, Inc. seeks a visionary Sr. Director of AI Strategy & Engineering Productivity to partner with senior leaders and translate bottom-up innovation into a cohesive, enterprise-grade AI productivity roadmap.

You will drive multi-year strategy, establish governance, and scale AI-enabled tooling and workflows across thousands of engineers, while balancing ownership and change management to deliver tangible business value.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Business, or a related technical field or equivalent practical work experience.
• 15+ years of professional experience across software engineering, developer platforms, technical strategy, engineering leadership, or technology transformation.
• Experience with enterprise-scale strategies for software delivery modernization, developer productivity platforms, or AI-enabled technical transformations (preferably with hyperscalers).
• Proven track record of influencing VP/SVP-level leaders, aligning multi-functional partners, and driving large-scale organizational change in a complex, matrixed technology environment.
• Demonstrable strategy background implementing modern software development lifecycle (CI/CD, security, observability, platform engineering) and practical applications of generative AI.

Responsibilities

• Distill long-range ambition into clear strategic priorities, market positioning, and a multi-year roadmap for AI-enabled productivity spanning developer tooling, coding harnesses, AI-DLC practices, and operational workflows.
• Establish a flexible operating model that bridges bottom-up developer innovation, strategic multi-functional initiatives, and executive mandates.
• Create a rigorous prioritization framework to evaluate trade-offs, model business impact, and transition Cisco from fragmented AI experimentation to scalable, repeatable, enterprise-grade capabilities.
• Partner with the Corporate Partnerships team to influence external AI model provider and tool vendor roadmaps, secure early access to frontier capabilities, and improve vendor ecosystem ROI.
• Collaborate closely with Engineering, Product, IT, Legal, Security & Trust, and Finance leaders—advocating for engineering constraints while constructively challenging the status quo to drive enterprise-wide alignment.
• Lead a vibrant, multi-functional community of practice across business units to establish shared standards for tooling, governance, and prioritization without sacrificing team autonomy.
• Design and operationalize comprehensive measurement frameworks that evolve beyond surface-level adoption metrics to rigorously quantify engineering throughput, code quality, developer satisfaction (DevEx), and realized financial value.
• Champion an AI-first, activated workforce grounded in trust, accountability, and psychological safety.
• Modernize engineering workflows, clarify technical ownership, and coach distributed teams through continuous change with high quality and early risk resolution.

Skills

Strategic leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

AI strategy

Enterprise-scale transformation

CI/CD & security

Education

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

Master’s degree or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Engineering, or MBA

Job description

Cisco Systems, Inc. seeks a visionary Sr. Director of AI Strategy & Engineering Productivity to partner with senior leaders and translate bottom-up innovation into a cohesive, enterprise-grade AI productivity roadmap.

You will drive multi-year strategy, establish governance, and scale AI-enabled tooling and workflows across thousands of engineers, while balancing ownership and change management to deliver tangible business value.