Cisco’s unique innovation strategy, build, buy, partner, and invest, is the engine that powers our technology leadership. We build organically through initiatives like AI Canvas, buy strategically with acquisitions such as Splunk, partner with industry leaders to deliver cutting-edge AI solutions, and invest with innovative companies across technology areas. This commitment to innovation is not just about the technology we create; it is about the expertise and thought leadership that Cisco, our employees and partners provide to our customers.
How Solution Engineers Are the Heart of Customer-Centric Innovation
While the innovation strategy sets our direction, our people are the ones who bring it to life. Nowhere is this more evident than in Cisco’s global community of 6,000+ Solutions Engineers (SEs). Spanning multiple geographies and technical architectures, our SEs operate at the intersection of understanding our customers’ needs and translating Cisco’s technology into solutions that provide tangible business value.
With technologies spanning networking, security, collaboration, observability, data, and AI, SEs build expertise across many areas. For them, Cisco is an ever-expanding “LEGO store” of innovation, moving across architectures and learning new technologies as the portfolio grows. This depth and continuity of expertise enables customers to work with SEs who understand not just the individual products, but how Cisco’s architectures integrate to support their long-term business outcomes.
Empowering Customers and Partners with Trusted Expertise
The SE community also brings the voice of the customer back to our Sales, Marketing, and Engineering teams. By working closely with our customers, there is a continuous feedback loop that guides Cisco’s innovation roadmap to ensure it is aligned with real-world customer opportunities.
SEs possess a combination of technical excellence, business acumen, and a maniacal focus on doing whatever it takes to make our customers, partners, and the company successful. They stay at the forefront of emerging technologies through continuous training and advanced certifications like the Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) certification, which help build customer trust.
Our senior technical talent, such as Principal or Distinguished Solutions Engineer roles, have built their knowledge over many years in various roles across technology and business areas, creating broader perspectives that help our customers solve their most complex challenges. These technical experts leverage advanced knowledge of Cisco’s architecture, services, programs, as well as the market, ecosystem, and industry to drive innovation for Cisco, customers, and partners.
The lifelong learning mindset, certifications, and senior-level distinctions that SEs strive for aren’t just for their own career growth, it’s a commitment to their expertise that benefits our customers. Ongoing learning and deep engineering rigor across the SE community at Cisco is a commitment to our customers to provide informative, current, and technically validated guidance across complex environments. Combined with Cisco’s innovation strategy and broad technology portfolio, our people are truly the strategic advantage that allows Cisco to deliver innovation to our customers and the market.
Together with our Solutions Engineers and partners, Cisco is shaping the future of technology to deliver value to our global customers.