The application window is expected to close on: 09/17/2026
This is a hybrid position and requires 2-3 days in office per week. Candidates should be located in San Jose, CA or Raleigh, NC or Atlanta, GA.
Your ImpactAs a Technical Marketing Engineer on the Cisco Validated team, you will help turn Cisco's One Cisco and Better Together strategy into field-credible technical proof. You will lead validation work across integrated Cisco solutions, building and testing lab environments that reflect real customer scenarios and expose what is repeatable, supportable, and ready for the field.
You will work closely with Business Unit product managers, Business Unit TMEs, architects, field teams, and Cisco Validated peers to scope validation efforts, define evidence requirements, identify integration gaps, and translate technical findings into assets that sales teams, architects, partners, and customers can trust. You will be expected to bring structure to loosely defined requests, work through technical and organizational ambiguity, and keep validation efforts moving from concept to credible proof. Your work will support classic Cisco Validated Designs while expanding the team's role across proof motions, integrated solutions, case studies, briefs, and reference architectures.
You will also help raise the technical bar for the broader validation team by mentoring developing TMEs, shaping repeatable validation practices, and contributing to a durable cross-portfolio talent model. Responsibilities include:
- Lead cross-portfolio validation efforts for integrated Cisco solutions aligned to Cisco's strategic priorities.
- Define validation scope, success criteria, evidence requirements, and repeatability expectations for assigned initiatives, bringing structure to ambiguous requests and evolving priorities.
- Build, configure, test, and troubleshoot complex lab environments that reflect real customer deployment scenarios.
- Partner with BU product managers, BU TMEs, Architectural Sponsors, field architects, sales teams, and Cisco Validated peers to ensure validation outcomes are technically credible and field-relevant.
- Identify integration gaps, product limitations, operational considerations, and readiness concerns early enough to inform product, field, and leadership decisions.
- Produce clear technical evidence, lab notes, configuration artifacts, test results, known issues, and documentation inputs for validated outcomes.
- Mentor developing TMEs and external partner resources by setting technical direction, reviewing evidence quality, and reinforcing repeatable validation practices.
Technical Scope
The ideal candidate brings broad technical fluency across the Cisco portfolio, with depth in one or more domains and the ability to learn quickly as Cisco's strategy evolves. This role requires enough technical range to validate integrated outcomes, identify gaps, and explain how Cisco technologies work together in real customer environments.
Key areas of technical scope may include:
- Secure networking, routing, switching, wireless, segmentation, policy, assurance, and observability.
- Security architectures, secure access, threat detection, identity, firewall, VPN, and zero trust concepts.
- Cloud, data center, AI infrastructure, workload connectivity, high-performance fabrics, and hybrid cloud architectures.
- Collaboration platforms, user experience, application behavior, and integrated workflow considerations.
- Digital resilience, operational continuity, telemetry, troubleshooting, incident readiness, and repeatable recovery patterns.
- Lab validation methods, performance testing, interoperability testing, evidence capture, and technical documentation.
Minimum Qualifications- Bachelor's degree in engineering, Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related technical field and 12+ years of hands-on technical experience designing, implementing, validating, troubleshooting, or supporting complex enterprise, service provider, cloud, security, collaboration, or data center technology environments.
- Experience in networking, security, cloud, collaboration, automation, or adjacent infrastructure technologies, with depth in at least one major technical domain.
- Experience leading technical work across cross-functional stakeholders, including product, engineering, field, sales, or customer-facing teams.
- Experience translating ambiguous technical or business objectives into scoped validation plans, evidence requirements, findings, and field-ready outputs.
Preferred Qualifications- Demonstrated ability to operate effectively in ambiguous, fast-moving environments with shifting priorities, cross-functional dependencies, and complex technical tradeoffs.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain technical findings and recommendations to technical and non-technical audiences.
- Deep knowledge of the Cisco portfolio, with hands-on experience across multiple Cisco technologies, architectures, or solution domains.
- Demonstrated ability to understand how Cisco products integrate into broader customer architectures and cross-portfolio outcomes.
- Strong general networking foundation, including routing, switching, wireless, security, cloud connectivity, segmentation, policy, observability, or related infrastructure concepts.
- Experience with AI infrastructure, AI-ready data center architectures, GPU cluster networking, high-performance fabrics, workload connectivity, or secure AI architecture concepts.
- Experience validating, designing, deploying, or supporting integrated solutions in lab, field, customer, partner, or systems engineering environments.
- Ability to communicate technical findings and recommendations clearly to sales teams, partners and product stakeholders, through technical documentation, deployment guidance, reference architectures, and validation proof assets.
