Senior Director, Engineering - Quality (Security Business Group)
Cisco · San Jose, United States · 1d ago
Meet the Team
Cisco Security is looking for a strategic, hands-on Senior Director of Quality Engineering to define and lead the quality strategy, operating framework, and engineering standards across our Cloud and Network Security product portfolio. You will build a modern, scalable global quality organization that enables secure, resilient, and exceptional customer experiences across cloud-delivered services, network security platforms, and integrated solutions. Our team is at the forefront of the industry, building AI-powered security products that power Cisco’s security portfolio from network security and threat detection to automated response and predictive analytics. We operate at the intersection of cutting-edge research and massive-scale production, ensuring that Cisco remains the leader in proactive, intelligent security.
Your Impact
Success in this role is defined by your ability to create a unified quality engineering vision that empowers Cisco Security teams to ship faster with greater confidence. You will be instrumental in improving overall reliability, security, and customer experience, effectively transforming quality into a measurable, shared responsibility across the entire Cloud and Network Security portfolio.
Define and implement an enterprise-quality strategy for Cloud and Network Security products, aligned with business priorities, customer outcomes, and Cisco’s security standards.
Establish a common quality engineering framework spanning development, testing, release readiness, reliability, performance, security validation, and customer experience.
Lead and grow a high-performing global Quality Engineering organization, developing leaders and fostering a culture of accountability, automation, and continuous improvement.
Partner closely with Product Management, Engineering, Security, SRE, Support, and Customer Experience teams to embed quality early in the product lifecycle.
Drive a shift from traditional testing toward modern quality engineering practices, including automated validation, risk-based testing, observability, continuous delivery, and measurable quality outcomes.
Create consistent release governance and readiness mechanisms for complex cloud and network security offerings.
Define quality metrics, dashboards, and executive reporting that connect engineering health to customer impact, reliability, and business performance.
Lead cross-portfolio initiatives to improve defect prevention, scalability, interoperability, performance, resilience, and security assurance.
Advocate for customer-first quality standards, using field insights, support trends, and telemetry to prioritize improvements.
Influence architecture and engineering decisions to ensure products are designed for testability, operability, security, and reliability.
Minimum Qualifications
Bachelor’s Degree or 15+ years of progressive experience in software engineering, quality engineering, reliability engineering, or related technical leadership roles.
7+ years of experience leading large, distributed engineering or quality organizations defining quality strategy for cloud-native, SaaS, networking, cybersecurity, or enterprise software products.
Proven experience with CI/CD, automated testing, test infrastructure, API and UI validation, performance engineering, chaos/resilience testing or production observability.
Experience with cloud platforms, distributed systems, networking, and security technologies (eg: firewalls, SASE etc.,)
Preferred Qualifications
Experience with network security, firewall, SASE, zero trust, identity, cloud security, or threat detection products.
Experience operating in a large, global technology organization.
Demonstrated ability to establish scalable operating models and quality frameworks across multiple product teams.
Proven success influencing senior executives and aligning diverse organizations around shared quality and delivery outcomes.
Familiarity with secure software development lifecycle (SDLC) practices and compliance-driven quality requirements.
Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field; an advanced degree is preferred.
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 $293,900.00 to $406,800.00 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 - $467,900.00Non-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.