Design Program Manager

The application window is expected to close on: November 17, 2025. NOTE: Job posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or if a sufficient number of applications are received. Note: This role is a **Remote, US.** **Meet the Team** Join the Security & AI Design organization - a vibrant, multidisciplinary team of product designers, researchers, content strategists, and design engineers united by a shared passion for solving complex security challenges with simplicity and creativity. As part of Design Operations, you'll help enable creativity at scale - ensuring design excellence, operational efficiency, and alignment across our global design community. We empower designers to do their best work while driving clarity, consistency, and impact across Cisco's Security portfolio. **Your Impact** As a Design Program Manager, you'll connect the dots between design, product, and engineering - ensuring our teams have the structure, tools, and rhythm they need to thrive. You'll bring focus and organization to creative chaos, enabling teams to deliver high-quality, user-centered experiences efficiently. **In this role, you will:** + Partner with design leads to scope projects, define priorities, and track execution across multiple workstreams. + Facilitate team rituals - reviews, critiques, retrospectives - and ensure outcomes are documented and followed through. + Drive operational excellence through project planning, documentation, and process improvement. + Maintain visibility across timelines, dependencies, and risks, ensuring stakeholders stay informed and aligned. + Champion design culture by organizing workshops, onboarding programs, and initiatives that strengthen team connection and growth. What success looks like: Design teams are aligned, supported, and able to focus on what they do best - designing meaningful, human-centered experiences that elevate Cisco's security products. **Minimum Qualifications** + Bachelor's or Master's degree in Psychology, Operations or related field. + Experience in design operations, program or project management, or similar roles supporting product or design teams. + Hands-on experience facilitating and documenting design rituals (e.g., critiques, retrospectives, reviews). + Experience using project management and collaboration tools such as Jira, Airtable, Confluence, and Figma. + Prior experience in software product development, design, or UX. **Preferred Qualifications** + Experience identifying and managing operational risks across cross-functional teams. + Strong written and verbal communication with proven facilitation skills. + Exceptional organizational and documentation skills with attention to detail. + Ability to navigate ambiguity, manage multiple priorities, and adapt to change. + Understandingofdesign systems, agile workflows, and user-centered design practices. + Interest in security, networking, or cloud domains, with curiosity to learn and grow. + Motivated by building structure in growing and evolving design organizations. **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 $135,800.00 to $193,400.00 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: $135,800.00 - $222,400.00 Non-Metro New York state & Washington state: $122,000.00 - $197,900.00 * 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. 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.