Design Program Manager, AI Transformation & Foundations

Meet the Team: Design Foundations helps Cisco Networking product teams ship coherent, credible, buildable, and AI-ready user experiences at scale. We work horizontally across the Networking portfolio, including Meraki, Catalyst, ThousandEyes, and emerging agentic operations experiences. We bring together shared UX foundations across design systems, design language, AI experience standards, content strategy, methodology, governance, tooling, and design quality. Design Foundations is helping teams embrace new methods, standards, tools, and operating models with clarity, consistency, and measurable impact.

About the role

As a Design Program Manager for AI Transformation & Foundations, you will drive the operating model that helps Cisco Networking UX adopt AI-assisted design practices at scale. You will turn emerging AI work into clear programs with goals, owners, roadmaps, governance, adoption plans, and measurable outcomes. You will partner across Design Foundations, Design Ops, product design, research, engineering, security, AI, and product teams to ensure AI initiatives move from exploration to durable practice. This role is for someone who can bring structure to ambiguity, build trust across teams, and help a distributed design organization change how it works. You will not just coordinate AI work; you will shape how it is prioritized, delivered, measured, communicated, and scaled.

Responsibilities

• Own program management for AI Transformation and Design Foundations initiatives, including AI methodology, AgenticOps, AI education, governance, adoption, and cross-portfolio design readiness.
• Build roadmaps, milestones, risks, dependencies, decision logs, reporting mechanisms, and operating rhythms for AI-focused Foundations work.
• Coordinate across product design, design systems, research, content strategy, engineering, security, AI, and Design Ops to keep sophisticated AI workstreams aligned and moving.
• Establish lightweight governance models for AI design practices, including intake, prioritization, review cadences, adoption tracking, and leadership visibility.
• Partner with Design Technologists and Design Engineers to operationalize new practices, tools, agent skills, prototypes, and standards across the organization.
• Track adoption, risks, dependencies, and impact across AI design initiatives, surfacing decisions and tradeoffs for leadership.
• Build program playbooks, communication plans, and operating mechanisms that help teams understand what is happening and how to engage.
• Identify where teams are blocked by process, ownership, tooling, decision-making, or cross-functional alignment, and help create a path forward.

Requirements

• Consistent track record in design program management, design operations, product operations, UX program management, product program management, or equivalent experience in a product-focused organization.
• Experience driving sophisticated, cross-functional programs across design, product, engineering, research, operations, or platform teams.
• Experience leading transformation, adoption, capability-building, or change management programs across multiple teams.
• Experience creating roadmaps, operating models, program documentation, reporting mechanisms, and decision-making processes.
• Strong understanding of product design, user-centered design methods, design systems, research, or product development workflows.
• Strong communication, facilitation, partner management, and executive reporting skills.
• Ability to bring structure to ambiguous problems, navigate opposing priorities, and drive work forward without heavy oversight.
• Comfort working with AI-assisted tools and curiosity about how AI changes design practice, product development, and team operations.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience leading AI, transformation, design systems, design quality, design operations, or capability-building programs.
• Experience working with design teams adopting AI tools, agentic workflows, automation, or new design technology.
• Experience with adoption metrics, maturity models, governance frameworks, enablement plans, or organizational change programs.
• Familiarity with Figma, Jira, GitHub, design systems, design tokens, research operations, or design-to-engineering workflows.
• Experience partnering with security, legal, procurement, platform, or AI teams to support responsible adoption of new tools or vendors.

About 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.

Pay

The starting salary range for this position is $139,200.00 to $201,400.00 for new hires 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:

• New York City Metro Area: $171,600.00 - $281,800.00
• Non-Metro New York State & Washington State: $151,300.00 - $250,900.00

For quota-based sales roles on Cisco’s sales plan, the ranges provided include base pay and sales target incentive compensation combined.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• 401(k) plan with Cisco matching contribution
• Paid parental leave
• Short- and long-term disability coverage
• Basic life insurance
• Grants of Cisco restricted stock units (vesting based on continued employment)
• 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
• 4 paid days off for personal wellness
• Non-exempt employees: 16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year (accrued at 4.92 hours per pay period for full-time employees)
• Exempt employees: Flexible vacation time off program with no defined limit (subject to business limitations)
• 80 hours of sick time off provided on hire date and each January 1st thereafter, with up to 80 hours of unused sick time carried forward
• Additional paid time away for critical or emergency family issues
• Optional 10 paid days per full calendar year to volunteer
• Annual bonuses (subject to Cisco’s policies for non-sales roles)
• Performance-based incentive pay for sales roles (split between quota and non-quota components)

Schedule

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
• 4 paid days off for personal wellness