Sr. Director of Silicon and Optics Product Growth Strategist

Meet the Team

We are a dynamic, fast-paced team and to be successful in this high-stakes role, you have outstanding storytelling skills and deep market insights to join as product growth strategist. This high visibility role will reward the right leader with invaluable chances to create a significant impact with the Strategy, Growth, and Product Marketing group, and Cisco at large.

Your Impact

You will be primarily responsible for external-facing activities ensuring your product's market success and understanding key industry trends and your customers' struggles. You will work closely with engineering, sales, central marketing, and customer experience teams to ensure your product positioning resonates with target customers, driving product visibility, adoption, and overall success. You will also lead a team of dedicated marketers to develop the strategy and lead execution of marketing efforts for Cisco's silicon and optics portfolio. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in product marketing, proven team leadership skills, and a deep understanding of the data center infrastructure ecosystem.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and execute the GTM strategy including identifying target sectors, messaging, and positioning for silicon and optics development.
• Translate technology to value by developing core product positioning, messaging, and identifying differentiators. Craft compelling and consistent positioning and messaging around the differentiators that align with the overall product strategy and resonate with customers and partners. Work with inbound product management, engineering, and the field to identify and articulate the outstanding value of the company's silicon and chip solutions, emphasizing attributes such as performance, power efficiency, scalability and reliability, and ensuring they are communicated and understood by the target audiences. Passionately represent the voice of our customers to internal teams.
• Develop content for collateral, product training, and other resources for direct sales teams and partner organizations. Engage directly with sales and customers to understand changing needs. Attend industry events and serve as domain expert.
• Continuously analyze the market and customer feedback to identify emerging trends, opportunities, and threats in silicon and optics development. Identify key use cases and vertical markets (campus, IoT, connectivity and data center solutions) and align product positioning to address customer needs in these sectors.
• Conduct meticulous competitive analysis to ensure the product is positioned successfully. Highlight technical differentiators, performance benchmarks, and outstanding value propositions of the company's chips in comparison to competitors.
• Demonstrate strong analytical and problem-solving skills with a data-driven mentality to make product and marketing recommendations. Define and monitor metrics to assess GTM success.
• Position Cisco as a thought leader in the semiconductor space by developing content, speaking at industry events, and creating visibility through external channels (media, blogs, analyst reports, awards, etc.)
• Build campaign briefs to identify areas of business opportunity and equip the central marketing team with the required resources to effectively enable sales with the value of the products and solutions.

Minimum Qualifications

• 10+ years in enterprise/B2B tech experience.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in related field.
• Experience in product marketing leadership in use-cases, applications, software, and network infrastructure platforms, silicon and optics.
• Track record of leading successful go-to-market launches for silicon or chip solutions. Experience leading teams in top technology companies.
• Strong technical understanding of silicon design, chip architecture, and fabrication processes

Preferred Qualifications

• Understanding of and experience in leading product marketing for AI, compute, data center switching and storage solutions or adjacent infrastructure and networking domains
• Experience marketing chips for applications like AI/ML, edge computing, or advanced automotive systems.
• Familiarity with the semiconductor supply chain, including foundries, design tools, and packaging technologies.
• Established relationships within the semiconductor industry, including influencers, analysts, and partners.

Pay Range: 274900 USD - 371500 USD

Why Cisco?

#WeAreCisco. We are all unique, but collectively we bring our talents to work as a team, to develop innovative technology and power a more inclusive, digital future for everyone. How do we do it? Well, for starters - with people like you!

Nearly every internet connection around the world touches Cisco. We're the Internet's optimists. Our technology makes sure the data traveling at light speed across connections does so securely, yet it's not what we make but what we make happen which marks us out. We're helping those who work in the health service to connect with patients and each other; schools, colleges, and universities to teach in even the most challenging of times. We're helping businesses of all shapes and sizes to connect with their employees and customers in new ways, providing people with access to the digital skills they need and connecting the most remote parts of the world - whether through 5G, or otherwise.

We tackle whatever challenges come our way. We have each other's backs, we recognize our accomplishments, and we grow together. We celebrate and support one another - from big and small things in life to big career moments. And giving back is in our DNA (we get 10 days off each year to do just that).

We know that powering an inclusive future starts with us. Because without diversity and a dedication to equality, there is no moving forward. Our 30 Inclusive Communities, that bring people together around commonalities or passions, are leading the way. Together we're committed to learning, listening, caring for our communities, whilst supporting the most vulnerable with a collective effort to make this world a better place either with technology, or through our actions.

So, you have colorful hair? Don't care. Tattoos? Show off your ink. Like polka dots? That's cool. Pop culture geek? Many of us are. Passion for technology and world changing? Be you, with us! #WeAreCisco