The application window is expected to close on: March 30, 2025

Job posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or if a sufficient number of applications are received.

Location: Central U.S.

Travel is required and this position is home office based.

Meet The Team

As a Solution Engineer within Cisco's Global Security Sales Organization (GSSO), you will play a critical role in driving large enterprise deals.

This role is 100% focused on driving specific customer opportunities. You will be assigned a set of strategic accounts and will be responsible for creating and driving 8-figure deals within those accounts. Specifically, your focus will be on Hybrid Mesh Firewall and Segmentation opportunities across on-prem, hybrid, and public cloud environments. The core function of this role is pre-sales revenue-generating activity .

Cisco Security is consistently launching innovative products in the market that help Cisco's customers adopt a more effective defense against the world's most sophisticated cyber threats.

This role requires a solid understanding of customer value drivers related to network security for modern platform architectures and the related security trends and market landscape. You will apply a hunting mentality to generate pipeline and revenue with a thoughtful go-to-market strategy for new and existing Cisco Security customers.

At Cisco, we believe that impactful work is rewarding work and that our team is at its best when everyone feels empowered to bring their whole self to work. We learn together by hiring for cultural contribution, not cultural fit, and recognize that diversity in background and thought are essential to building high-impact teams.

We invest in growth and learning opportunities and encourage our people to never stop learning. We foster collaboration and believe in being recognized (and rewarded!) for hard work. We champion a healthy work-life balance and together we build for the future by designing simple solutions for complex problems. And that’s why we’re the most loved and trusted name in security.

Your Impact

You are responsible for driving market success and adoption of Cisco's Hybrid Mesh Firewall and Zero Trust Segmentation solutions. This is a highly visible technical (pre-sales) position that supports the Product and Engineering Business Units, Sales and Field Engineering organizations, working directly with each of them, our partners, and prospective customers.

You will conduct technical presentations, demonstrations, workshops, PoV’s to explain features and benefits to customers. You will form relationships with our customer’s key decision-makers, positioning Cisco solutions aligned precisely to their requirements. As an advisor to the customer, you will craft architectures and configure products to meet their specific needs and be prepared to lead all technical aspects of pre-sales activities through to a successful deployment of our incubated technologies.

You must be highly accomplished in the areas of application security concepts, cloud security concepts, and more specifically the entire Cloud Application Security Development and Deployment lifecycle. You will possess skills across data center networking, firewalls, Application and Network Segmentation strategies (Macro & Micro), Container Security and Orchestration platforms. Additionally, you will need knowledge of and to keep up to date on networking and software enablement, API’s and Network Programmability. You will work with a variety of technologies and will therefore need strong cross-functional collaboration and consultative skills. The capacity to demonstrate technical solutions and capabilities effectively and conduct multi-architectural Proof-of-Value (POV) tests is a must.

You are a self-starter, will act as an industry domain expert, and strive to help Cisco make customers for life
Act as the highest field escalation resource for the SE team and potential prospects for technical product questions, demos, trials / POVs, and pre-sale customer issues during the sales cycle.
Deliver technical presentations along with sales staff via web conferencing or in-field to prospective C-level audience and technical decision makers.
Be available as a competitive expert to assist with product positioning and customer opportunity success
Provide essential input and responses to assist with major RFIs / RFPs.
Assist with delivery and GTM of new product features as they are introduced.
Participate in formal Early Adoption and Private Preview programs to thoroughly test new technologies, providing feedback to Product and Engineering teams.
Evangelize to and enable the wider Cisco SE and Partner SE teams across the region.
Work directly with Product Management as a liaison to accounts around technical product requirements and to help provide customer feedback with the goal of enabling continuous improvement of Cisco’s offerings in this space
Effectively interact with internal engineering teams to scope and provide solutions to complex technical issues for highly visible customer and market opportunities.
Assist in the development of GTM tools such as Demos, Workshops, Trial and POV best practices by creating content, giving demos and running labs in support of various events (internal, partner, customer).

Minimum Qualifications:

5+ years of technical experience as a pre-sales engineer, network operations support, or application engineering role.
5+ years of enterprise pre-sales experience working directly with network, cloud security and/or micro-segmentation products in a customer-facing role.
Have a solid mastery of LAN, WAN, Cloud Security (L4-L7, FWaaS, IPS, DNS Security, VPN etc.) technologies

Preferred Qualifications:

Understanding of competitive products such as Palo Alto Networks and Fortinet, VMware, Illumio, Guardicore (Akamai) Networks; ability to articulate Cisco differentiators.
Strong knowledge of cloud computing platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP) and container technologies (e.g., Kubernetes, Docker).
Deep understanding and familiarity with competing market-leading micro-segmentation products
Strong understanding of networking protocols and technologies, including switching, routing, and security.
Familiarity with security principles related to microservices architecture and serverless computing.
Passion for customer satisfaction and delivering results, even when faced with nuanced and difficult situations.
A self-starter with a positive attitude and friendly outgoing personality.
Strong written and email etiquette skill.
Strong oral interpersonal skills, including the ability to present technical information in user-friendly language.
Ability to prioritize and work responsibly with or without direct supervision.

#WeAreCisco

#WeAreCisco where every individual brings their unique skills and perspectives together to pursue our purpose of powering an inclusive future for all.

Our passion is connection—we celebrate our employees’ diverse set of backgrounds and focus on unlocking potential. Cisconians often experience one company, many careers where learning and development are encouraged and supported at every stage. Our technology, tools, and culture pioneered hybrid work trends, allowing all to not only give their best, but be their best.

We understand our outstanding opportunity to bring communities together and at the heart of that is our people. One-third of Cisconians collaborate in our 30 employee resource organizations, called Inclusive Communities, to connect, nurture belonging, learn to be informed allies, and make a difference. Dedicated paid time off to volunteer—80 hours each year—allows us to give back to causes we are passionate about, and nearly 86% do!

Our purpose, driven by our people, is what makes us the worldwide leader in technology that powers the internet. Helping our customers reimagine their applications, secure their enterprise, transform their infrastructure, and meet their sustainability goals is what we do best.

Cisco is an Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, genetic information, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected basis.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation

Pay range depends upon U.S. state

Cisco

New Jobs

Pre-Sales Security/Segmentation Architect - U.S. Central