At Cisco Meraki, we know that technology can connect, empower, and drive us. Our mission is to simplify technology so our customers can focus on what's most meaningful to them: their students, patients, customers, and businesses. We’re making IT and networking easier, faster, and smarter with technology that simply works!
The Chief of Staff is a strategic advisor and operating partner to the CTO / Head of Engineering, working alongside the Senior Engineering Leadership Team. You will help establish, facilitate and drive the operating cadence of a rapidly growing engineering team. You will focus on building trust, improving coordination between teams, communicating with Meraki and Cisco as a whole and most importantly assist the CTO and senior staff on organization transformation. This is a people manager role leading a small team and can be fully remote or based out of a Cisco Meraki office.
What you will do:
- Act as a sounding board to senior leadership on matters of strategy, team efficiency, and operations
- Hold the agenda for staff and director meetings
- Maintain a strategic backlog of topics for the leadership team
- Lead planning and execution of the monthly all-hands (1k+ people)
- Continuously look for opportunities to improve the operating cadence of the organization as it scales
- Manage and grow an existing small operations team with a focus on retention and career development
- Drive strategic initiatives around developer happiness and quality
- Drive priorities through weekly meetings, tracking actions, and shaping off-sites. Find opportunities to increase leadership team effectiveness based on an understanding of product, ops, and strategic needs of the company.
- Lead engineering-wide strategy and planning processes (OKR planning, quality reviews, release planning, headcount planning, budget, DEI, etc.) and represent the CTO in meetings when needed.
- Work hand-in-hand with colleagues on the Finance, People, and Operations teams to drive employee happiness and engagement, recruiting efficiency, headcount allocation, training, facilities, budget management, etc. This includes reviewing budget proposals, vetting budget requests for merit and authenticity and monitoring spending.
- Drive a communication plan that builds awareness of the team vision, key accomplishments, and impact throughout the organization.
- Help ensure our recruiting efforts and hiring process are streamlined, attract top talent, and build on our diverse, inclusive, people-first culture. Evolve the organization design, headcount forecasting, and staffing plan against team strategies and product priorities.
What we're looking for:
- 10+ years of experience working in a software product environment (ideally SaaS) supporting engineering functions or similar proven experience in a CoS role.
- Experience in executive-level advising and interdepartmental collaboration.
- Excellent relationship building skills: you influence, persuade, and build trust across your organizations.
- Excellent analysis and problem-solving skills: you see the bigger picture, seek root causes, synthesize details, and break down obstacles into manageable work.
- Exceptional written and verbal and communication skills, and a refined skill in tailoring messages to specific audiences in their preferred channels.
- Comfort with ambiguity and a bias towards action and experimentation to drive progress.
- A growth mindset, boundless creativity and adaptability, high situational awareness.
Does this sound like you? We’d love to hear from you!
At Cisco Meraki, we’re challenging the status quo with the power of diversity, inclusion, and collaboration. When we connect different perspectives, we can imagine new possibilities, inspire innovation, and release the full potential of our people. We’re building an employee experience that includes appreciation, belonging, growth, and purpose for everyone.
Cisco is an Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, genetic information, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected basis. Cisco will consider for employment, on a case by case basis, qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
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Message to applicants applying to work in the U.S.:
When available, the salary range posted for this position reflects the projected hiring range for new hire, full-time salaries in U.S. locations, not including equity or benefits. For non-sales roles the hiring ranges reflect base salary only; employees are also eligible to receive annual bonuses. Hiring ranges for sales positions include base and incentive compensation target. Individual pay is determined by the candidate's hiring location and additional factors, including but not limited to skillset, experience, and relevant education, certifications, or training. Applicants may not be eligible for the full salary range based on their U.S. hiring location. The recruiter can share more details about compensation for the role in your location during the hiring process.
U.S. employees have access to quality medical, dental and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution, short and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance and numerous wellbeing offerings. Employees receive up to twelve paid holidays per calendar year, which includes one floating holiday, plus a day off for their birthday. Employees accrue up to 20 days of Paid Time Off (PTO) each year and have access to paid time away to deal with critical or emergency issues without tapping into their PTO. We offer additional paid time to volunteer and give back to the community. Employees are also able to purchase company stock through our Employee Stock Purchase Program.
Employees on sales plans earn performance-based incentive pay on top of their base salary, which is split between quota and non-quota components. For quota-based incentive pay, Cisco pays at the standard rate of 1% of incentive target for each 1% revenue attainment against the quota up to 100%. Once performance exceeds 100% quota attainment, incentive rates may increase up to five times the standard rate with no cap on incentive compensation. For non-quota-based sales performance elements such as strategic sales objectives, Cisco may pay up to 125% of target. Cisco sales plans do not have a minimum threshold of performance for sales incentive compensation to be paid.