The application window is expected to close on: 06/29/2026Job posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or if a sufficient number of applications are received.
Meet the Team
Cisco Security helps organizations achieve two critical outcomes: securing campus and branch environments and protecting data center environments. These outcomes are delivered through multiple security architectures and products that together form Cisco’s Zero Trust Security Fabric.
As a Principal Designer, Information Architecture, you will help shape how customers understand, navigate, and adopt Cisco Security solutions across a broad portfolio of products and platforms. This is a highly visible individual contributor role that partners with design, product management, engineering, and business leaders to create a unified experience across Cisco Security’s ecosystem.
This role offers the opportunity to influence product strategy, drive alignment across multiple teams, and establish foundational information architecture frameworks that support the future of Cisco Security.
Your Impact
As a Principal Designer, Information Architecture, you will define and evolve the conceptual frameworks, taxonomies, navigation models, and information structures that connect Cisco Security products into a cohesive customer experience. You will partner closely with cross-functional teams to align customer needs, business objectives, and technical architectures while helping teams deliver consistent experiences across multiple platforms and products.
In this role, you will:
- Define information architecture frameworks, taxonomies, conceptual models, and navigation structures that support Cisco Security products and platforms.
- Partner with design, product management, and engineering teams to establish consistent terminology, object models, and user experience patterns across multiple product areas.
- Develop information architecture strategies that align customer outcomes with underlying security architectures and capabilities.
- Create persona-based frameworks and customer journey models that inform product experiences across multiple user types and workflows.
- Influence platform-level navigation, content organization, and cross-product experiences across Cisco Security surfaces and management environments.
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree and 15+ years of experience, Master’s degree and 12+ years of experience, or PhD and 8+ years of experience in information architecture, user experience design, product design, human-computer interaction, or a related field.
- Experience defining information architecture frameworks, taxonomies, navigation systems, or conceptual models for enterprise software products.
- Experience working with cross-functional teams that include design, product management, and engineering organizations.
- Experience designing or supporting multi-product platforms, enterprise applications, cloud services, networking, security, or infrastructure software products.
- Experience creating user-centered frameworks using research, personas, customer journeys, or jobs-to-be-done methodologies.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience supporting large-scale platform consolidation, product integration, or multi-product user experience initiatives.
- Experience developing information architecture strategies for cybersecurity, networking, cloud infrastructure, identity, or enterprise software solutions.
- Experience establishing governance models, controlled vocabularies, design systems, or cross-product experience standards.
- Experience presenting recommendations and influencing decisions with senior leaders and cross-functional stakeholders.
- Contributions to the user experience, information architecture, design, or technology community through publications, speaking engagements, teaching, mentoring, or professional 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 $194,900.00 to $247,200.00 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:
$225,000.00 - $374,100.00
Non-Metro New York state& Washington state:
$208,600.00 - $330,000.00
- 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.
