Reliability Engineering Technical Leader

Candidate must be local to the San Jose area, as this is a hybrid role requiring 2–3 days in office.

About the Team

The Global Process Operations (GPO) group is a core part of the Product Operations Central team, providing centralized expertise that strengthens the strategic and operational framework for Business Units (BUs) across Cisco’s product portfolio. This team partners with cross-functional leaders to define product lifecycle management (PLM) strategies, improve operational efficiency, and drive innovation and transformation across NPI, sustaining, and end-to-end supply chain processes.

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end reliability strategy across new product introductions, from upfront risk assessments through product launch and sustaining engineering.
• Lead cross-functional reliability planning, design reviews, FMEA, validation testing, and root cause analysis to ensure products meet reliability objectives.
• Influence executive decision-making by providing strategic guidance on reliability risks, field performance, and long-term quality improvements.
• Drive continuous improvement through field reliability monitoring, lessons learned, closed-loop corrective actions, and data-driven reliability metrics.
• Champion transformational reliability initiatives, improving processes, methodologies, and collaboration across engineering, manufacturing, and quality organizations.
• Mentor and develop reliability engineers, fostering technical excellence, collaboration, and a culture of data-driven decision making.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering or a related field with 12+ years of experience, or a Master’s degree with 8+ years of relevant experience.
• Deep knowledge of hardware reliability, system architecture, data center infrastructure, and PCBA-level failure mechanisms.
• Proven ability to influence executive stakeholders by translating complex technical data into actionable business strategies and decisions.
• Demonstrated success leading large-scale, cross-functional reliability initiatives while mentoring and developing engineering teams.
• Expertise in identifying systemic reliability risks and implementing data-driven solutions that improve Reliability, Availability, and Serviceability (RAS).

Preferred Qualifications

• Black Belt certification, Certified Reliability Engineer (CRE), or Certified Quality Engineer (CQE).

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.

Pay

The starting salary range for this position is $162,500.00 to $205,400.00 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: $162,500.00 – $236,200.00
• Non-Metro New York State & Washington State: $144,100.00 – $214,500.00

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
• 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 receive 16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year, accrued at 4.92 hours per pay period for full-time employees
• Exempt employees participate in Cisco’s flexible vacation time off program, with no defined limit on vacation time (subject to availability and 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 annually
• 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
• Eligibility to earn annual bonuses (for non-sales roles) or performance-based incentive pay (for sales roles), subject to Cisco’s policies