Sr. Director Of Product Operations at Cisco Systems, Inc.

*Application deadline expected to expire 10/18/24

As Senior Director of Product Operations in the Product Management and Design team under the Security Business Group, your primary responsibility will be to drive and implement initiatives to ensure strong operational execution. This role reports into the VP of Operations. You will work within the Product & Design team and across the organization, including Sales, Customer Success, Renewal, and engineering teams, to advocate for improving existing processes and programs, as well as leading multi-functional operational efforts. You will ensure a consistent product strategy, product feature intake & loopback process, and roadmap planning methodology for the product management lifecycle, fostering a predictable experience for the product managers and partnering teams. Your role will be pivotal in driving operational efficiency and empowering Product Managers to focus on solving customer problems in line with our high-level product strategic priorities.

What You Will Do

• Coordinate with Product Managers, Customer Success, Renewal, Support, and Sales teams to ensure engagement and alignment on the feature intake process.
• Develop and implement roadmap planning governance, trade-off management framework, and operational strategies to enhance product delivery efficiency, quality, and customer satisfaction.
• Support Product Management & Design team's annual and quarterly planning cadence.
• Lead critical multi-functional programs as needed to drive impactful customer engagement and renewals.
• Partner with product leaders, chiefs of staff, and operations team members to continuously improve business rhythms, including weekly and quarterly reviews, planning, and metrics.
• Improve multi-functional communication to ensure alignment of roles and responsibilities.
• Manage and rationalize tools and standard processes to support product planning and design.
• Identify and implement process improvement initiatives to streamline product planning, development, launch, and lifecycle management.
• Develop and track team-level Objective Key Results to measure and improve the effectiveness of product operations.
• Lead and mentor a high-performing team of product operations professionals.

Who You Are

You are a proven product operations leader with the ability to balance completeness and quick business results, optimizing for speed and effectiveness with persuasion skills and an ability to lead without direct authority and thrive in ambiguous situations. Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making skills, with the ability to interpret data and insights to inform strategies with a customer-centric approach on delivering exceptional value and experience through product offerings.

Who You'll Work With

• Multi-functional teams including Product Management, Engineering, Sales, and Customer Success Support to align on product goals, timelines, and deliverables.
• Customers across product, engineering program management, business operations, go-to-market operations, product marketing, sales, and other partner organizations to ensure effective collaboration.
• Your team of product operations professionals, whom you will lead and mentor.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in business, Engineering, Computer Science, or an equivalent.
• 18+ years of experience in Product Operations, Business Operations, or Portfolio Program Management or equivalent in a relevant position.
• Proven experience in leading complex projects with extensive experience in initiating and driving process improvements.

Preferred Qualifications

• Deep understanding of the needs of different customers in a Product, Engineering, UX, CX, and Renewal organization, from executive leadership to individual contributors with at least 8 years in a leadership role.
• MBA or advanced degree preferred.
• Experience with development and operational tools such as Aha!, Airtable, Smartsheet, JIRA, SharePoint, etc.
• Experience in the cybersecurity industry and familiarity with security standards and compliance requirements.

Pay Range: 274900 USD - 371500 USD

Why Cisco Secure

We're global, we're adaptable, we're diverse, and our security portfolio is as extensive as it is groundbreaking. Have you heard of Threat, Detection & Response, Zero Trust by Duo, Common Services Engineering, or Cloud & Network Security? Those are only a few of our product teams! The only thing we're missing is YOU.

Join an enterprise security leader with a start-up culture, committed to driving innovation and giving you the opportunity to make an impact. We #InnovateToWin and we know we're better together, that's why we're dedicated to inclusivity, collaboration, and diversity in everything we do.

We're proud to be the Best Small and Mid-Size Enterprises Security Solution. Cisco Secure continues to grow and evolve year after year with 100% of Fortune 100 Companies using our products, and we're excited to see the new heights we'll reach with your passion for security, your customer focus, and your desire to change things up!

There are so many amazing reasons to join Cisco. Learn more here!

Message to applicants applying to work in the U.S. and/or Canada:
When available, the salary range posted for this position reflects the projected hiring range for new hire, full-time salaries in U.S. and/or Canada locations, not including equity or benefits. For non-sales roles, the hiring ranges reflect base salary only; employees are also eligible to receive annual bonuses. Hiring ranges for sales positions include base and incentive compensation target. Individual pay is determined by the candidate's hiring location and additional factors, including but not limited to skillset, experience, and relevant education, certifications, or training. Applicants may not be eligible for the full salary range based on their U.S. or Canada hiring location. The recruiter can share more details about compensation for the role in your location during the hiring process.

U.S. employees have access to quality medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution, short and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance, and numerous wellbeing offerings. Employees receive up to twelve paid holidays per calendar year, which includes one floating holiday, plus a day off for their birthday. Employees accrue up to 20 days of Paid Time Off (PTO) each year and have access to paid time away to deal with critical or emergency issues without tapping into their PTO. We offer additional paid time to volunteer and give back to the community. Employees are also able to purchase company stock through our Employee Stock Purchase Program.

Employees on sales plans earn performance-based incentive pay on top of their base salary, which is split between quota and non-quota components. 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 up to 125% of target. Cisco sales plans do not have a minimum threshold of performance for sales incentive compensation to be paid.