Engineering Program Manager

Cisco•Milpitas, MI

11d

About The Position

The application window is expected to close on: 08/24/2026 Job posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or if a sufficient number of applications are received. Meet the Team You will join a team building complex, cloud-native SaaS and AI-powered products that move from concept through production launch, adoption, and ongoing operation. The team works across product management, engineering, applied AI/ML, data, infrastructure, security, compliance, customer experience, and go-to-market partners to deliver customer-ready capabilities at scale. This is a highly multi-functional environment where transparency, execution, rigor, and strong partnership are critical to success. The work is fast-moving, and focused on delivering enterprise-grade products and AI capabilities that are reliable, secure, and built for real-world adoption. Your Impact As a Technical Program Manager, you will lead sophisticated SaaS and AI-powered product initiatives from strategy through production delivery and operation. You will bring structure to ambiguous programs and drive alignment across large, multi-functional teams. Turn product and technical strategy into clear plans, milestones, dependencies, success metrics, and ownership across teams. Lead large programs with moderate to high risk, multiple interdependencies, and impact across customers, partners, platforms, and releases. Lead programs spanning product, engineering, design, data, applied AI/ML, infrastructure, security, compliance, customer experience, and go-to-market teams. Influence product and technical roadmaps by managing critical paths, sequencing, architecture dependencies, delivery tradeoffs, risks, resources, and commitments. Lead agentic AI programs from definition through production and iteration, coordinating agent workflows, model and tool integration, grounding, evaluations, guardrails, observability, and human oversight. Establish evaluation-driven delivery practices so AI quality, safety, latency, cost, and reliability are measured before launch and monitored in production. Partner with engineering and quality teams to define validation, release, observability, and operational-readiness requirements for continuous integration and deployment. Communicate program status, technical tradeoffs, risks, and decisions to executive audiences with clear recommendations. Provide guidance and mentorship to other program managers and team members while driving a strategic horizon of one year or more.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree with 8+ years of related experience, Master’s degree with 6+ years of related experience, or PhD with 3+ years of related experience.
Experience leading complex technical programs for enterprise SaaS products through production launch and ongoing operation.
Experience directly leading at least one generative AI, LLM-based, or agentic capability through development, production launch, and post-launch iteration.
Previous experience leading cross-functional technical programs through influence in a highly matrixed organization.
Experience in cloud platforms, APIs, distributed systems, data systems, and modern AI development and deployment practices.

Nice To Haves

Experience leading multi-team SaaS or AI programs involving cloud-native architecture, API integrations, data platforms, AI evaluations, security, reliability, and customer-facing production launches.
Experience with generative AI and agentic systems, including agent orchestration, tool use, retrieval-augmented generation, evaluation frameworks, guardrails, observability, and human-in-the-loop workflows.
Ability to understand system architecture, identify cross-platform dependencies, facilitate engineering tradeoffs, and translate complex technical risks and decisions for executive audiences.
Experience applying fit-for-purpose development and execution practices, including Agile methodologies, to improve planning, decision-making, delivery, and learning.
Strong ability to bring structure to ambiguous initiatives, drive timely decisions, and create accountability across product, engineering, security, compliance, customer experience, and go-to-market stakeholders.

Responsibilities

Lead sophisticated SaaS and AI-powered product initiatives from strategy through production delivery and operation.
Bring structure to ambiguous programs and drive alignment across large, multi-functional teams.
Turn product and technical strategy into clear plans, milestones, dependencies, success metrics, and ownership across teams.
Lead large programs with moderate to high risk, multiple interdependencies, and impact across customers, partners, platforms, and releases.
Lead programs spanning product, engineering, design, data, applied AI/ML, infrastructure, security, compliance, customer experience, and go-to-market teams.
Influence product and technical roadmaps by managing critical paths, sequencing, architecture dependencies, delivery tradeoffs, risks, resources, and commitments.
Lead agentic AI programs from definition through production and iteration, coordinating agent workflows, model and tool integration, grounding, evaluations, guardrails, observability, and human oversight.
Establish evaluation-driven delivery practices so AI quality, safety, latency, cost, and reliability are measured before launch and monitored in production.
Partner with engineering and quality teams to define validation, release, observability, and operational-readiness requirements for continuous integration and deployment.
Communicate program status, technical tradeoffs, risks, and decisions to executive audiences with clear recommendations.
Provide guidance and mentorship to other program managers and team members while driving a strategic horizon of one year or more.

Benefits

medical, dental and vision insurance
a 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution
paid parental leave
short and long-term disability coverage
basic life insurance
10 paid holidays per full calendar year
1 floating holiday for non-exempt employees
1 paid day off for employee’s birthday
paid year-end holiday shutdown
4 paid days off for personal wellness
16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year, accrued at rate of 4.92 hours per pay period for full-time employees (non-exempt)
flexible vacation time off program (exempt)
80 hours of sick time off provided on hire date and each January 1st thereafter
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
annual bonuses (for non-sales roles)
performance-based incentive pay (for sales roles)