Principal Designer - Cisco Cloud Control
Cisco· enterprise· Enterprise Software· Oct 23, 2026 · 5d ago
San Jose, California, US
In office
Full-time
Principal
$234K–$380K
15+ years exp
Job description
The application window is expected to close on: 11/23/2026 Meet the Team
Cloud Control brings Cisco’s products and platform capabilities together in a shared experience for customers, partners, and AI agents. As Principal Designer for Cloud Control Guidelines & Governance, you will steward the Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) that help teams decide what capabilities are, where they belong, what they are called, and how they work together.
You will take the HIG from its first version to an adopted, evolving capability. This is a highly leveraged individual contributor role: you will build alignment across design, product, engineering, Studio, and product organizations without relying on formal authority. You will bring these partners together as an X-Team or guild and create shared decisions and working practices that let teams move with greater clarity and autonomy.
We expect an AI-first way of working. You will use AI tools and agents to expand your capacity across research synthesis, change management, prototyping, content operations, and validation. You will combine that leverage with strong design judgment, relationship building, and clear accountability.
Your Impact
As a Team, we can answer common questions about what a capability is, where it belongs, and what it should be called without requiring a bespoke review meeting. Our shared decisions include clear ownership, rationale, and examples, along with a defined path to revisit them as products and models evolve. The HIG is embraced across participating product groups and is reflected consistently in both human-readable guidance and encoded rules. Our team retains the flexibility to solve customer problems while Cloud Control becomes a more coherent, unified experience. We have built AI-enabled workflows to support a reliable operating cadence and provide reusable ways for teams to find, apply, and continuously improve the guidance.
In this Principal Designer role, you can expect to:
Lead the evolution of Cloud Control’s Human Interface Guidelines from an initial framework into an adopted, continuously improving capability used across product groups.
Define and govern information architecture, taxonomy, naming, and experience rules so teams can make faster, clearer product decisions without constant bespoke reviews.
Establish and run a cross-functional HIG X-Team/guild to drive contribution pathways, decision-making, exception handling, and escalation across organizations.
Partner with design systems, Studio engineering, and product teams to convert approved guidance into machine-readable rules and evaluation criteria, enabling scalable quality checks.
Use AI tools and automation to accelerate synthesis, change management, and validation so the governance model maintains a reliable release cadence and measurable adoption.
Minimum Qualifications
Bachelors 15 years of related experience, or Masters 12 years of related experience, or PhD 8 years of related experience, or equivalent related work experience
10 years of experience in product design, information architecture, design systems, content architecture, or a closely related discipline, including principal-level or equivalent scope.
Experience shaping information architecture for complex digital products/platforms, including taxonomies, naming systems, conceptual models, and capability placement rules.
Experience creating or stewarding multi-team design guidelines, standards, or governance frameworks used across organizations.
Experience applying generative AI, agents, or automation to research synthesis, content operations, prototyping, or quality evaluation workflows.
Preferred Qualifications
Experience with enterprise SaaS, cloud platforms, multi-product ecosystems, developer platforms, or products used by internal and external builders.
Experience building or leading a guild, community of practice, X-Team, or other cross-organizational working group.
Familiarity with machine-readable design guidance, agent workflows, MCP, skills, evaluation rubrics, or AI-enabled development tools.
Experience connecting design guidelines to product quality checks, adoption measures, or evaluation systems.
Experience working across different customer needs, deployment models, regulatory contexts, or levels of product maturity.
Familiarity with design systems and content governance, including how shared guidance relates to components, terminology, technical architecture, and product-specific standards.
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 $233,900.00 to $330,400.00 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:
$233,900.00 - $380,000.00
Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:
$220,900.00 - $344,300.00
* 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.
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