User Experience Researcher Jobs in California

The application window is expected to close on: 09/24/2026Job posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or if a sufficient number of applications are received.

This is a hybrid role, located in San Jose, CA and requires being in the office 3 days a week.

Meet the Team

Cisco’s Customer Experience (CX) organization is one of the company’s fastest-growing and most innovative teams, crafting a first-in-class digital experience for our customers and partners everywhere they connect with Cisco. Cisco IQ is the platform behind it, built with emerging technologies including predictive and generative AI to drive customer success. We deliver with urgency, decide with data, and lead with ownership.
Our design team shapes the support experience, helping customers find, understand, and reduce risk across their networks. Most of what we build takes an overwhelming volume of information and distills it down to what matters most for each customer, so they can make key decisions quickly without losing the knowledge and context behind them, work that rewards systems-level thinking. Join us to pioneer and shape how AI evolves both what we build and how we build it.

Your Impact

Execute design for a specific set of features, producing the flows, wireframes, interactive prototypes, and production-ready visual design, andpartnering daily with product management and engineering, so the work gets built as intended. Ground your decisions in what we know about our users and their business, so every design is backed by real insight into how they work. Apply AI tools across your own workflow, from concept generation and prototyping to testing andvalidating designs and automating routine tasks, then influence how the team works based on whatyou’ve uncovered. Push the next generation of our products toward AI-native experiences, applying the interaction patterns that earn a user’s trust. Success looks like shipped experiences that are measurably easier to use, and better ways of working that the team picks up from you.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree with 5+ years of experience, ormaster's degree with 3+ years of experience. 
• Experience in UX Design or Product Design. 
• Experience in design tools such as Figma, Sketch, or similar applications. 
• Experience integrating AI tools (e.g., Claude, other LLM assistants, generative design tools) into design workflows or designing AI-powered product features.

Preferred Qualifications

• Degree in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Interaction Design, or a related field. 
• Experience working within established design systems, applying components and patterns consistently and with design principles. 
• Experience designing complex enterprise or technical software, including networking, security, cloud, or data-intensive dashboards. 
• Portfoliodemonstrating end-to-end ownership of shipped software, including user flows, wireframes, interactive prototypes, and final visual designs. 
• Track record of experimenting with emerging AI tools and sharing insights through internal demos, write-ups, side projects, or publications.

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 $138,100.00 to $196,500.00 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:
$138,100.00 - $226,000.00

Non-Metro New York state& Washington state:
$124,000.00 - $201,000.00

• 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.