Principal Product Manager

This role is based in San Jose and requires reporting into the office in a hybrid model.

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.

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.

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.

Benefits

• 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
• 10 paid holidays per full calendar year
• 1 paid day off for employee’s birthday
• Paid year-end holiday shutdown
• 4 paid days off for personal wellness
• 80 hours of sick time off provided on hire date and each January 1st thereafter
• Optional 10 paid days per full calendar year to volunteer