Director, Product Design

The Application Window is expected to close on 12/18/25. However, the job posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or if a sufficient number of applications are received.
Who We Are
Cisco ThousandEyes is a Digital Experience Assurance platform that empowers organizations to deliver flawless digital experiences across every network - even the ones they don't own. Powered by AI and an unmatched set of cloud, internet and enterprise network telemetry data, ThousandEyes enables IT teams to proactively detect, diagnose, and remediate issues - before they impact end- user experiences.
ThousandEyes is deeply integrated across the entire Cisco technology portfolio and beyond, helping customers deploy at scale while also delivering AI-powered assurance insights within Cisco's leading Networking, Security, Collaboration, and Observability portfolios.
About the Role
At ThousandEyes, we are fanatical about design. Our product is built to visualize the Internet and the services that flow across it. The Internet is a massive distributed system with thousands of networks at its core serving half of the human population. As the Head of Product Design you are going to solve data visualization problems at the Internet scale. We believe in innovation, simplicity, and elegance.
This role is a combination of people management and design work. As the Head of Design, you will be responsible for building and growing a team of designers as well as the product.
You will work with our customers, engineers, product management, and customer success to determine design requirements, create mockups, user workflows, do user research, and provide feedback to constantly improve our product. You will be part of the full product development cycle, from strategic user decisions to pixel-perfect design delivery.
We are looking for someone who can collaborate with Product Management and Engineering to make complex, technical concepts intuitive and be responsible for the design of broad areas of our product.
What You'll Do:
• Lead, manage & grow a team of designers along with owning design projects from conception to delivery.
• Hire, mentor and be responsible for the growth and development of designers within the team organization.
• Create user journeys, wireframes, detailed UX flows, prototypes, UI mockups, sketches, visuals, decks, and explanations that promote understanding and alignment with cross functional teams.
• Simplify complexities around data visualization, helping our users get actionable insights seamlessly.
• Iterate based on feedback from a broad range of team members, users, and subject matter experts. Give and receive feedback in regular reviews and critiques with designers.
• Build a thorough understanding of the technology and influence the product strategy.
• Design, conduct and synthesize user research activities to help build a deep understanding of our users and address usability issues. Drive design decisions based on data from user metrics as well as qualitative interviews.
• Effectively communicate design concepts to a range of stakeholders and audiences within the team as well as across the company. Build consensus and balance different priorities while dealing with ambiguity.
• Initiate ideas and solutions beyond the product roadmap to improve the overall experience for our users.
Qualifications:
• 15+ years of design experience with demonstrated success with cloud-native, enterprise/SaaS data-intensive products
• 8+ years of experience building, growing & managing teams
• Experience and/or passion for working with data visualization
• Can articulate the reasoning behind your design decisions
• Can think through user problems while understanding technical constraints
• Self-learner with aptitude for understanding complex, technical concepts
• Experience conducting and participating user research activities
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 $280,100.00 to $384,800.00 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:
$280,100.00 - $442,600.00
Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:
$267,600.00 - $390,300.00
* 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.