Director, Solutions Engineer Forward Deployed - Splunk (Remote)

About the role

Cisco is hiring a Director, Solutions Engineer for its Splunk Forward Deployed Solutions Engineering (FDSE) team, a hands-on technical group embedded with strategic global customers across the Americas to lead enterprise AI transformation. The role is remote and can be performed anywhere in the United States, with travel requirements of up to 50%. The application window closes on November 10, 2026.

Key responsibilities

• Build, scale and lead a team of customer-embedded Forward Deployed Solution Engineers working on advanced AI deployments, cloud architectures and mission-critical enterprise systems.
• Accelerate customer business outcomes, shorten time-to-value and deliver technical proof that drives account retention and expansion.
• Hire, develop and mentor engineering talent while fostering technical rigor, continuous learning and customer obsession.
• Partner with customer C-level technology executives, enterprise architects and Cisco/Splunk product engineering leadership to turn deployment telemetry into roadmap innovations.

Required profile

• Minimum 10 years of professional experience in customer-facing pre-sales engineering, post-sales architecture or professional services (or Master's degree plus 8 years, or PhD plus 5 years).
• Minimum 5 years of direct people management experience leading pre-sales, post-sales or customer-embedded technical engineering teams.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Technology or a related technical discipline (or equivalent practical experience).
• Preferred: experience leading multi-level or matrixed technical organizations.

Required skills

• Minimum 3 years architecting, deploying or managing AI, ML or enterprise data platform solutions in production.
• Minimum 3 years designing and deploying distributed cloud-native, hybrid or event-driven architectures.
• Preferred: 3+ years with Generative and Agentic AI, Kubernetes and event-driven data platforms; 5+ years architecting solutions using Cisco networking/security portfolios, Splunk or similar enterprise suites.
• Preferred: active AI or cloud certifications and experience with customer-embedded forward-deployed engineering.

What we offer

• Starting salary range of $320,600 to $407,100, depending on location (New York City metro area $320,600-$468,200; other New York and Washington states $307,600-$447,000).
• Medical, dental and vision insurance, 401(k) with a match, paid parental leave, disability and life insurance, and possible restricted stock unit grants.
• 10 paid holidays, birthday and year-end holidays, and flexible vacation for exempt employees.
• 80 hours of sick leave per year, carryover and optional 10 paid volunteer days.
• Annual bonus for non-sales roles; sales incentive pay on top of base salary.