Sales Engineer Jobs in San Jose, CA

The application window is expected to close on: 11/05/2026This remote role is open to US based candidates, no relocation is available.

Meet the team:
You will join the Global GTM Incubation& Emerging Technologies team, responsible for commercializing and scaling Cisco’s newest technology innovations. Sourced directly from our Product and Business Units, these rapid innovations require a specialized, agile approach to find market fit before they can be absorbed by the mainstream sales force. Our mission is to partner with Product leaders to develop, test, and validate early-stage GTM hypotheses, secure the company’s first"lighthous" customer wins, and build the repeatable sales and partner playbooks required to bring these products into the broader Specialist and Generalist sales organizations.

Your impact:
You will build the Multicloud Fabric GTM engineering incubation product into a repeatable, evidence-led sales motion by validating product-market fit, creating the field operating model, and converting early customer learning into scalable portfolio execution. In this role, you will lead the Americas-first team, coordinate the Solutions Engineering capacity assigned to the incubation, and develop the incubation sales process, including qualification, proof plans, adoption gates, pipeline rigor, enablement, and executive reviews. You will partner closely with product and engineering organizations on product-market-fit evidence, roadmap trade-offs, deployment friction, and reference architectures. Additionally, you will design the strategic handoff from a high-touch incubation team to the broader networking and portfolio sales organizations to ensure continuous growth and scale.

Minimum qualifications

• 12+ years of demonstrated experience in multicloud architecture, cloud networking and security, including a deep understanding of enterprise multi-cloud complexity and data-center exit/cloud first motions.
• 8+ years of proven track record of developing go-to-market strategies and sales playbooks for emerging technologies to validate product-market fit.
• 5+ years of strong cross-functional collaboration experience to partner effectively with product and engineering organizations on roadmap trade-offs and reference architectures.
• 5+ years of proven exceptional executive communication skills to lead executive reviews, present pipeline discipline, and influence stakeholders across the business.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience designing and delivering the handoff of high-touch incubation products to broader specialist and generalist sales organizations.
• Advanced knowledge of cloud and WAN refresh cycles, site-to-cloud architectures, and priority vertical hypotheses.
• Demonstrated ability to create and implement comprehensive incubation sales processes, including qualification, proof plans, and adoption gates.
• Experience coordinating and optimizing Solutions Engineering capacity across multiple regions or Americas-first teams.
• Strategic mindset with the ability to convert early customer learnings into scalable, repeatable portfolio execution models.

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 $266,100.00 to $342,900.00 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:
$266,100.00 - $394,300.00

Non-Metro New York state& Washington state:
$246,800.00 - $383,500.00

• 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.