Senior Director - Software Engineering (Cisco Duo)

020 Cisco Systems, Inc.; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 267,000 - 338,000; Full time

Job summary

Cisco Systems, Inc. is seeking a Senior Director of Engineering to lead the Duo engineering team. You will align priorities, set architecture, and guide multiple teams to deliver scalable, secure identity solutions across cloud, on-premises, and mobile platforms.

You will develop engineering leaders, partner with Product and Design, and translate complex security requirements into reliable, high-availability services that protect customers worldwide.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of software engineering experience with multi-team leadership.
• Experience in identity and access management or related security domains.
• Experience leading distributed teams that operate high-availability software.
• Proven track record delivering complex product capabilities from strategy to launch.

Responsibilities

• Align priorities and architecture across the stack and strengthen operational practices.
• Develop engineering leaders and translate product strategy into reliable services.
• Set technical direction for a flagship IAM product at Cisco and collaborate cross-functionally.

Skills

Software engineering

Engineering leadership

Identity and access management

Cloud security

Education

Bachelor's/Master's degree

Job description

Meet the Team Duo processes more than a billion authentications each month for customers around the world, from fast-growing startups to the world’s largest enterprises and critical infrastructure providers. The team is responsible for the full Duo stack, including high-throughput, multi-region cloud services, on-premises directory and gateway integrations, and Duo Mobile for iOS and Android. We are a customer-focused engineering team helping organizations keep pace with evolving identity threats through security that is easy to use.

As Senior Director of Engineering, you will lead the engineering team responsible for Duo, Cisco’s security-first identity and access management product. Duo helps organizations make access safer without making work harder. It brings together authentication, single sign-on, device trust, and adaptive access controls to verify who is connecting, from which device, and under what conditions.

Your Impact

You will align technical priorities and architecture across these areas while strengthening operational practices and reliability across the stack. Your work will help protect organizations and critical infrastructure around the world by delivering secure, easy-to-use identity capabilities. Guide teams on evolving engineering practices to build and operate high-quality software at scale. Partner closely with Product and Design and collaborate with other Cisco product teams to create integrated customer experiences. Develop engineering leaders and build strong, empowered teams that translate product strategy into resilient, scalable, and reliable services. Set technical direction and operational strategy for a flagship product at the intersection of identity, security, and everyday user experience.

Minimum Qualifications

• 15+ years of software engineering experience, including significant experience leading multi-team engineering organizations and developing engineering managers.
• Proven technical leadership experience in identity and access management (IAM), cybersecurity, enterprise cloud security, or a closely related enterprise software domain.
• Experience leading distributed engineering organizations that develop, scale, and operate high-availability customer-facing software products or cloud services.
• Proven track record of delivering complex product capabilities from strategy through launch and continuous live operations, leveraging operational data, telemetry, and customer feedback to drive reliability and execution excellence.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• Demonstrated ability to attract, hire, and retain top-tier engineering talent and cultivate an inclusive environment grounded in accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Experience guiding architecture for secure, highly available SaaS or distributed systems.
• Experience building software across public cloud, on-premises, and mobile environments.
• Fluency with modern authentication and identity standards, including SAML, OIDC, OAuth, and FIDO2/WebAuthn.
• Proven success evolving an engineering organization’s structure, operating model, or development methodologies while sustaining continuous delivery, high team engagement, and positive engineering culture.
• Strong ability to translate complex architectural tradeoffs, reliability risks, and security investments into strategic business terms for executive leadership.
• Proven experience collaborating closely with Product Management, User Experience/Design, and other cross‑functional partners to shape product roadmaps and deliver exceptional user experiences.

Why Cisco?

At Cisco, we are 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

Message to applicants applying to work in the U.S. and/or Canada: The starting salary range posted for this position is $267,200.00 to $337,900.00 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 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 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: $293,900.00 - $467,900.00 Non-Metro New York state & Washington state: $285,600.00 - $432,300.00 * 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.

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.