Director, Forward Deployed Engineers - Secure Services Edge

The application window is expected to close on: 08/16/2026 Job posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or if a sufficient number of applications are received . Meet the Team  The Cisco Security Business Group (SBG) is a powerhouse of innovation, providing a comprehensive, end-to-end security portfolio that includes VPN, Zero Trust access, cloud-based web inspection, firewall, CASB, and DLP.   We are seeking a Director, Forward Deployed Engineers to build and lead a distributed team of Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs). This team serves as the technical face of engineering for our largest and most strategic Security Service Edge (SSE) customers. We are looking for a seasoned leader who has "done the work"—someone who has personally navigated complex critical issues, understands the technical intricacies of our solutions, and possesses the vision to scale these capabilities across global regions.

In this US-based, global leadership role, you will define the operating model for our FDE function, ensuring technical excellence for our most critical accounts. You will act as the primary engineering partner to Sales, CX, Product, and regional leadership.

Leadership: Hire, develop, and retain senior technical talent while defining career paths and job architecture.  Strategic Escalation Management: Own the SSE escalation function for key accounts, including intake, severity calibration, and executive-level communication. You will personally intervene in critical escalations to manage expectations and ensure timely resolution.  Operational Excellence: Establish rigorous standards for account health, including deployment readiness, configuration stability, and proactive incident mitigation.  Product Influence: Translate field-level insights and recurring escalation patterns into actionable, prioritized requirements for our Product and Engineering roadmaps.  Performance Metrics: Define and report on key KPIs—such as time-to-mitigation and customer technical satisfaction—to drive data-backed engineering investments.  Innovation & Enablement: Lead the automation roadmap (including AI-assisted analysis) and develop the knowledge base and runbooks necessary to scale the team effectively.  Collaboration: Define and lead the operating model of the FDE team in collaboration with Customer Success, Engineering, Product Management, Professional Services, Account Teams, and Partners.

Bachelor’s Degree plus 14+ years of experience with a recent focus on cloud security products, with significant hands-on technical ownership of production customer environments.  Proven experience leading technical teams, with a proven track record of hiring and mentoring senior individual contributors.  Demonstrated expertise in managing high-severity customer critical issues at the executive level, including navigating complicated customer conversations.  Proven proficiency across SSE domains: Zero Trust access, cloud web inspection, CASB, DLP, VPN, firewall policy or similar technologies.  Experience influencing product and engineering roadmaps using evidence-based field data (preferably for Service Providers and/or Telcos)  Preferred qualifications  Experience building or meaningfully scaling a customer-facing engineering, forward-deployed, or escalation function from an early stage.  Direct experience with large-scale multinational enterprise SSE or SASE rollouts.  Extensive experience leading distributed teams across various time zones and cultures and ability to travel to customer sites, regional offices, partner locations as required.  Familiarity with Cisco’s security and networking products.  Proven experience with SWG, VPN, FWaaS, DLP, CASB, and Identity/SSO integration in enterprise-grade deployments.  Why Cisco?  At Cisco, we’re revolutionizing how data and infrastructure connect and protect organizations in the AI era – and