Leader, Software Engineering (Hybrid)

Meet The Team

The CollabAI Platform team is the foundation that powers AI capabilities across Webex. LLM access, guardrails, model routing across OpenAI / Azure Foundry / AWS Bedrock, and the shared services that CollabAI product teams and downstream Webex features depend on. We operate at the intersection of AI infrastructure, cloud platform engineering, and security/compliance, and we're responsible for making sure every AI-powered feature in the product portfolio has a reliable, cost-efficient, and compliant path to production, including in regulated environments like FedRAMP. We partner closely with product engineering, SRE, security, and our hyperscaler partners to deliver a platform that lets the rest of the org move fast without compromising on safety, quality, or cost.

Your Impact

Lead the CollabAI Platform engineering team through the full design, development, and rollout lifecycle of foundational AI platform services as the team transitions to a broader scope of ownership.

Drive platform posture across multiple AI compliance programs, partnering with security and pen-test teams on scoped assessments and remediation.

Establish rigorous engineering standards for design reviews, security, observability, and quality, such as load/latency SLAs, and incident response for platform-impacting events.

Manage cross-team commitments and trade-offs, aligning platform roadmap and resource allocation with product priorities across CollabAI, Meetings, Messaging, and Contact Center.

Partner cross-functionally with product management, SRE, security/compliance, hyperscaler account teams (AWS, Azure, OpenAI), and consuming product teams to translate stakeholder needs into platform decisions.

Optimize platform architecture and workflows to improve development velocity, reduce cost per inference, and ensure the platform scales with growing AI adoption across the BU.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field with 15+ years of relevant experience, or Master's degree with 12+ years.

• Minimum of 4 years of direct supervisory or management experience leading software or platform engineering teams.

• Experience directing platform, infrastructure, or shared-services engineering supporting multiple downstream product teams.

• Experience leading large-scale, complex platform initiatives from technical requirements through production deployment.

• Experience defining and implementing technical standards for design, security, and testing in cloud-based environments (FedRAMP, PCI-DSS, or comparable regulated environments strongly preferred).

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on familiarity with AI/ML platform concerns such as LLM inference, model routing, cost and capacity management across hyperscalers (AWS Bedrock, Azure OpenAI/Foundry, OpenAI).

• Strong leadership presence with a track record of mentoring senior engineers and building high-performing platform teams.

• Excellent communication skills, including presenting platform strategy, compliance posture, and technical trade-offs to executive stakeholders and partner teams.

• Demonstrated ability to build consensus across service owners, product, SRE, and security/compliance stakeholders.

• Strategic mindset focused on continuous improvement: identifying architectural, tooling, and process efficiencies that compound across the org.

• Experience with Agile or similar methodologies in a fast-paced, global engineering environment.

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 $177,600.00 to $257,400.00 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:

$214,100.00 - $356,300.00

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:

$192,400.00 - $317,200.00

* 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.