The Customer Success Specialist (CSS) is responsible for driving software adoption and value realization, directly influencing successful renewals and sustained business growth. By maximizing AI-driven insights and deep technical expertise, the CSS orchestrates Technical Adoption Planning (TAP) to align technology deployments with customer business goals. This role acts as a trusted advisor, bridging the gap between customer needs and Cisco’s product teams to ensure maximum utilization, usability, and serviceability of Cisco technologies.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Planning & Orchestration

• TAP Execution: Proactively develop and drive Technical Adoption Plans (TAPs) that align with Duo & Secure Access customer goals, improving technology investment.
• Alignment Workshops: Facilitate workshops to review progress, drive customer outcomes, and ensure successful onboarding and renewals.
• Customer Insights: Maintain detailed customer profiles by gathering operational insights and applying AI-driven recommendations to suggest improvements in product usage.

Technical Enablement & Adoption

• AI-Powered Analytics: Apply telemetry and AI-driven insights to supervise adoption, identify blockers, and inform proactive engagement strategies.
• Authority Enablement: Build and deliver 1:many technical enablement (Authority Insight Series) and conduct customized sessions across multiple products.
• Technical Demos: Coordinate and complete moderately complex demo setups, highlighting key features and ensuring actionable follow-ups for implementation.
• Technical Advocacy: Act as a technology evangelist, providing feedback to product teams to advise development and address systemic product challenges.

Collaboration & Leadership

• Cross-Functional Partnership: Collaborate with Customer Success Managers (CSMs), Account Teams, Sales, and Partners to provide a unified engagement experience.
• Mentorship: Mentor junior CSS team members by reviewing work, providing actionable feedback, and promoting the use of AI to automate routine tasks.
• Partner Engagement: Influence executive and customer technical decision-making by articulating the state of the adoption business, including market trends and competitive observations.

What You’ll Do

• Portfolio Management: Lead a moderately-sized portfolio of mid-sized Duo & Secure Access customers across multiple products within a specific architecture.
• Issue Resolution: Identify and mitigate adoption blockers (e.g., misconfigured features, training gaps) and coordinate with support/engineering to resolve customer issues.
• Strategic Improvement: Supply to the broader customer strategy by piloting new approaches and suggesting process enhancements.
• Continuous Learning: Stay current with the latest Cisco technologies, AI advancements, the competitive landscape, and broader industry trends.

Minimum Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor’s degree + 5 years of related experience; OR Master’s degree + 3 years of related experience; OR PhD + 0 years of experience; or equivalent relevant work experience.
• Certification: Professional-level certification (e.g., CCNP) or equivalent relevant industry certification is encouraged.
• Technical Proficiency: Strong understanding of the specific architecture/product set relevant to the portfolio, with an emerging awareness of adjacent technologies.
• Communication: Consistent track record to facilitate technical workshops and build trusted advisory relationships with both technical and executive customers.

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:

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:

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:

* 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.