Account Executive - Architecture

What You'll Do

• Own relationships and influence strategic decisions within the customer’s buying center.
• Work with and support account teams and customers to understand customer needs and position Cisco’s area of specialization.
• Apply deep architectural expertise and broad solution knowledge, enriched by competitor intelligence and industry insight.
• Maintain expert-level knowledge of all elements of the business case, including the drivers of cost, benefit, and risk.
• Provide architectural expertise across opportunities without direct ownership; maintain architectural-specific forecasting while triangulating technical projections with broader portfolio planning to ensure alignment.
• Lead technical proof of concept (PoC) and proof of value (PoV) engagements, implementing scaled demonstration environments to showcase solution capabilities and business outcomes prior to customer commitment.
• Develop comprehensive proposals highlighting Cisco offerings that address solution gaps and align with customer objectives.
• Work closely with solution engineers, account teams, and customers to set the direction and strategy for specific focus areas and architectures.
• Provide valuable feedback from customer interactions to Cisco’s development teams, influencing product roadmaps and ensuring solutions are adaptive to emerging market demands and technological advancements.
• Develop and maintain an expert understanding of the market and technologies, advising customers on long-term, cross-architectural solutions.
• Influence the most significant deals at Cisco, involving strategic partnerships, complex solutions, and creating lasting impact.
• Steer customer mindset on your specialty architecture and ensure cohesion with the integration of related architectures.
• Synthesize complex competitive data to shape high-level account strategies and inform long-term business development plans.
• Advise internal and external stakeholders on industry shifts, risks associated with emerging competitor offerings, and evolving customer needs to ensure GTM strategies are adaptive.
• Cultivate trusted C-suite relationships, positioning Cisco as a strategic partner for comprehensive digital transformation through industry-leading architectural insights and tailored solutions.
• Collaborate on high-level negotiations with key accounts, with an understanding of both broader market shifts and specific competitor tactics, ensuring unmatched value in architectural solutions.
• Prioritize customer success and secure enduring, mutually beneficial relationships.
• Shape an architecture’s strategy by aligning with GTM market and revenue expansion objectives while actively guiding resource allocation to maximize impact.
• Leverage the transformative potential of an architecture by integrating emerging industry insights to amplify account team effectiveness and drive customers’ strategic ambitions.
• Contribute to the architecture’s evolution by providing consistent and sustained feedback to Engineering to evolve product offerings and sustain competitive advantage.
• Drive the architectural strategy and collaborate cross-architecturally to develop technical proposals.
• Lead scenario planning to refine long-range forecasts, integrate narratives to refine models, and oversee bill of materials development.
• Expand reach within and outside the buying center by establishing yourself as an industry advisor, bringing critical insights on Cisco’s architectures and value propositions.

Who You Are

• Aligned to a specific Cisco architecture and/or industry focus, with expert-level technical and product knowledge in an area of specialization.
• Possess a deep understanding of the relevant industry or vertical.
• Predominantly interact at the direct customer level.
• Engage directly with customers, including IT, Lines of Business, CXOs, and key decision makers.
• Serve as a primary technical influencer, particularly during the Qualify and Proposal phases, and may participate across the full sales lifecycle.
• Collaborate with internal business units, typically spending 10–25% of time on internal engagement, with greater involvement required for larger opportunities.
• Partner with business units to develop customer solutions, including new product development or enhancements to existing functionality.
• Operate within medium-complexity sales cycles, typically ranging from 3–6 months and extending up to 12–18 months for more complex opportunities.
• Support opportunities ranging from approximately $50K to $750K, with Service Provider opportunities exceeding $1M.
• Drive success through increased architecture revenue, competitive displacement, expanded wallet share, increased market share, and strong customer relationship development.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree with 12+ years of related experience; or
• Master's degree with 8+ years of related experience; or
• PhD with 5+ years of related experience.

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.