Lead Product Design, Platform

Application window is expected to close on 9/9/2024

Cisco Networking is an industry leader providing intelligent network solutions for organizations to securely connect users, devices, applications, and workloads everywhere.  We empower organizations everywhere – from local libraries to global hotels – to focus on their mission and have technology that simply works. Cisco has been named #1 Best Company to Work For in the U.S. by Fortune in 2023!

What We Are Looking For

The CNC Convergence, Intelligence team works with Cisco Networking groups, and broadly across Cisco to build and deliver product experiences that are enabled by technologies like AI, ML and GenAI. As a Design Lead you will bring your visual aesthetic and strategic storytelling to focus working through ambiguous challenges with up-and-coming technologies in order to amplify our products abilities, and deliver customer value through time savings and unique only Cisco insights.

In this hands-on role, you will develop and demonstrate deep domain knowledge, product expertise, and an understanding of sophisticated customer use cases and deployment models. You’ll deeply understand the needs of our customers, set the vision for the product grounded in those needs, and partner with cross-functional teams to build it iteratively. Your passion for bringing people together, and relying on design thinking methodologies will guide you through this exciting chance to create in an innovative space.

Our team's primary focus is on software, but we also find opportunities to collaborate with teams across the organization and think about how to improve the entire customer journey. Cisco Networking believes the quality of our products is dependent on the quality of our teams. We place a high value on nurturing the growth and development of everyone on our team. We give and get feedback early and often, share what we know, and learn from each other.

Responsibilities

• Lead design by working through different modalities of interaction, including conversational & voice.
• Consider the entire user journey, look closely at problems today alongside opportunities in the future for intelligence to address existing problems more effectively and the underlying systems (AI/ML/GenAI) that support intelligent experiences.
• Craft intelligent solutions that drive efficiency in enterprise applications and as a result, surprise and delight. Identify the right problems to address, run and synthesize research, sketch and prototype solutions, make hi-fi visuals. Address complicated problems with simplified interaction patterns, with streamlined and consistent flows and visual design that extends and elevates the Cisco brand.
• Using lean UX methodologies, drive early discovery work, using findings to inform short, mid, long-term delivery roadmaps and requirements, then leading a team to those designs to life. Balance delivering progress to our customers, while working towards long term perfection.
• Thought beyond GUI. Worked closely with engineering and data science to consider how customer needs (including problems and opportunity areas) demand specific types of data, learning models, and other algorithmic equations to deliver against those customers needs.
• Work collaboratively across matrixed teams in collaboration. Build trust with cross-function partners by seeking out their points of view, collaborating regularly and inviting them into research and co-creation with the team and customers. Advocate for prioritization of user-centered product enhancements grounded in research and analysis.
• Present persuasively a strategy that showcases storytelling in a rich visual lens. Tell the story of a project and build prototypes that precisely articulate design rationale.
• Have sight beyond your team's goals and consider how your work affects others and how you can influence other teams’ work. Proactively identify overlaps with other product areas and workstreams to drive consistently and work with other design teams to simplicity where applicable across the customer journey.
• Influence the strategic vision and guide design of large, complicated initiatives for a product, program or strategic effort of considerable size and scope, translating what may start as ambiguous business needs into clear customer-focused solutions.
• Facilitate workshops, sketching and prototyping sessions; build documentation and templates that enable others to consume and contribute.
• Provide direction to and mentor other designers; supporting the team with planning, navigating a large organization, and driving for clarity on execution timelines.

You're an ideal candidate if you have:

• 12+ years of professional experience designing and delivering technically complicated enterprise or consumer products with cross-functional teams from strategy to delivery.
• Has a portfolio that includes repeated history of simplifying complicated customer journeys and systems. Strong persuasive storytelling and influence,  visual design skills, and a highly polished level of craft. Examples where generative research drove north star opportunities, and brought them to customers through iterative releases, where you worked to influence cross domain partnerships with customers needs.
• Knowledge of the networking domain or experience in a related product or field is a plus.
• Aligned teams around customer-centered design decisions, using UX methodologies and tools (double-diamond, personas, journey mapping, dual agile, lean ux, prototypes), and influenced adoption by those who aren’t familiar with strategic UX engagements.
• Ability to operate at different altitudes: from high level strategy to granular page level designs.
• Made complicated problems and workflows feel simple and approachable.
• The ability to strike a balance between discovery and delivery and pivoting to meet the team and product needs.
• Lead and mentored junior UX designers, fostering a collaborative and innovative design culture within the team.

Does this sound like you? We’d love to hear from you!

At Cisco, we’re challenging the status quo with the power of diversity, inclusion, and collaboration. When we connect different perspectives, we can imagine new possibilities, inspire innovation, and release the full potential of our people. We’re building an employee experience that includes appreciation, belonging, growth, and purpose for everyone.

Cisco is an Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, genetic information, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected basis. Cisco will consider for employment, on a case by case basis, qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.