Senior UX Designer

Cisco Systems, Inc.; Milpitas (CA); On-site; USD 187,000 - 268,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

401(k) with Cisco matching

Paid parental leave

Job summary

Cisco Systems, Inc. is seeking a Senior UX Designer to transform complex technical problems into clear, accessible experiences. You will lead end-to-end UX processes across discovery to post-release learning, collaborating with product, engineering, architecture, and research teams.

You’ll craft implementation-ready designs, advocate for accessibility and consistency, and mentor peers while shaping product direction for data center infrastructure in the AI era.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree plus 8 years of related experience, Master's degree plus 6 years, or PhD plus 3 years.
• Experience leading complex digital products from discovery through implementation and validation with product and engineering teams.
• A portfolio demonstrating strong interaction design, information architecture, prototyping, visual design, systems thinking, and proficiency with tools such as Figma.

Responsibilities

• Lead significant UX and product design from discovery and research through interaction design, prototyping, implementation and validation.
• Simplify complex technical and operational problems using strong systems thinking, information architecture, interaction design, and visual craft.
• Use customer research, usability findings, analytics, and other evidence to identify needs, influence product direction, and define success.
• Partner with product, engineering, architecture, research, content, QA, and technical experts to align requirements, constraints, and trade-offs.
• Create implementation-ready designs with clear rationale, specifications, acceptance criteria, accessibility guidance, and critical product states.
• Work with engineering through delivery to resolve gaps, validate quality, and evolve reusable patterns and design-system guidance.
• Champion accessible, inclusive, and consistent experiences across the product.
• Scope and estimate work, manage priorities, and communicate dependencies or risks early.
• Mentor other designers and strengthen team practice through critique, facilitation, and knowledge sharing.

Skills

Interaction design

Information architecture

Prototyping

Visual design

Systems thinking

Figma

Education

Bachelor's degree + 8 years

Master's degree + 6 years

PhD + 3 years

Tools

Figma

Job description

The application window is expected to close on: 11/21/2026

Meet The Team

At the Hyperfabric Engineering Team, we believe that the traditional Data Center deployment and management practices must evolve and modernize to meet the needs of the modern Artificial Intelligence and Edge Computing workloads. Our mission is to deliver Data Center Infrastructure Management as a Service, empowering enterprises to manage highly scalable, fault-tolerant, and mission-critical networking and server ecosystems with minimal networking engineering overhead.We are building a Cloud-based product that allows customers to order, operate, monitor, triage, and remediate their Data Center Infrastructure in a scalable, hands-off manner. By leveraging cutting-edge technologies, we deliver innovative, scalable, maintainable, and easy-to-use platform that will disrupt and optimize Data Center management for infrastructure that hosts the modern AI applications.

We're looking for a Senior UX Designer who enjoys turning complex technical problems into clear, approachable experiences. This is an opportunity to shape meaningful products, influence product direction, and help customers complete sophisticated work with greater confidence and less friction.You'll join a collaborative, cross-functional team that values curiosity, thoughtful debate, shared ownership, and strong design craft. Our designers work closely with product managers, engineers, architects, researchers, and QA from early discovery through delivery. We learn from customers and one another, support experimentation, and care deeply about building experiences that are useful, accessible, consistent, and grounded in real customer needs.

Impact

In this role, you'll design experiences consistent with Cisco Design Thinking Principles, with simplification, accessibility, trust, and customer outcomes at the core. You'll translate complex customer needs, business goals, and technical capabilities into intuitive, coherent experiences and help cross-functional partners define the right problems and create the right solutions for customers.You'll own the end-to-end UX process for significant product areas-from discovery, problem framing, and research through information architecture, interaction design, prototyping, validation, implementation handoff, and post-release learning. You'll create clear design documentation, specifications, prototypes, and decision records that enable teams to build with confidence, bring new ideas for product innovation, and help improve design quality and product-development practices.

• Lead significant UX and product design from discovery and research through interaction design, prototyping, implementation and validation.
• Simplify complex technical and operational problems using strong systems thinking, information architecture, interaction design, and visual craft.
• Use customer research, usability findings, analytics, and other evidence to identify needs, influence product direction, and define success.
• Partner with product, engineering, architecture, research, content, QA, and technical experts to align requirements, constraints, and trade-offs.
• Create implementation-ready designs with clear rationale, specifications, acceptance criteria, accessibility guidance, and critical product states.
• Work with engineering through delivery to resolve gaps, validate quality, and evolve reusable patterns and design-system guidance.
• Champion accessible, inclusive, and consistent experiences across the product.
• Scope and estimate work, manage priorities, and communicate dependencies or risks early.
• Mentor other designers and strengthen team practice through critique, facilitation, and knowledge sharing.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree plus 8 years of related experience, Master's degree plus 6 years, or PhD plus 3 years.
• Experience leading complex digital products from discovery through implementation and validation with product and engineering teams.
• A portfolio demonstrating strong interaction design, information architecture, prototyping, visual design, systems thinking, and proficiency with tools such as Figma.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience designing complex technical products-particularly in networking or an adjacent domain-and learning unfamiliar concepts quickly.
• Experience using customer evidence to shape product direction and evaluate outcomes.
• Experience with design systems, reusable patterns, WCAG, and inclusive design.
• Familiarity with frontend constraints, APIs, data models, or design-to-development workflows.
• Experience mentoring designers, leading critiques or workshops, and raising design quality.
• Strong facilitation, presentation, design-storytelling, and stakeholder-management skills.

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 $186,900.00 to $267,700.00 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 ofunused sick timecarried forwardfrom one calendar yearto 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.

New York City Metro Area:

$186,900.00 - $307,800.00

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:

$166,300.00 - $274,100.00

* 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.