Solutions Development Architect

Job description

Meet the Team Security at Cisco is no longer a product you bolt on — it is table stakes, and it is a lifecycle, and our Customer Experience (CX) Professional Services team in Asia Pacific & Japan is where that belief meets our largest Service Provider customers. We help Tier-1 carriers, national operators, mobile network operators, and telco-cloud/webscale providers across Japan, Australia/New Zealand, ASEAN, and India transform their security architecture — infusing protection into the network fabric, embedding zero trust by design, and standing up a modern, AI-driven Security Operations Center. We are a small, senior, high-trust group of architects of record who operate at the intersection of deep networking and security, and who are trusted by CISOs and CTOs to set the security direction for some of the region's most complex networks. What is exciting is the scope: you own the security agenda for an entire vertical across four diverse markets, and you get to shape how an agentic, AI-powered SOC and security-by-design come to life at carrier scale. Your Impact As a senior Security Solutions Development Architect, you will drive the CX Security pre-sales architecture and delivery strategy for highly complex, large-scale groundbreaking engagements across APJ Service Provider accounts, acting as the security architect of record. You will influence security, network, and operations decisions at executive and C-levels (CISO, CTO, SVP and above) and translate security architecture into measurable outcomes — risk reduction, faster mean-time-to-detect/respond, lower threat dwell-time, stronger compliance posture, and analyst productivity — so customers can see the business value, not just the technology. You will architect zero trust transformations and security-by-design controls (segmentation, secure connectivity, policy-based isolation) that embed protection into routing, transport, data center, edge, and peering layers, then develop the observability framework and high-fidelity detections that power an agentic, AI-driven SOC. You will uncover new and expansion security opportunities, lead CX security RFI/RFP responses, and scope and price cross-architecture proposals so they can be cleanly delivered by CX's technical delivery teams — staying lightly engaged post-sale to ensure realization and bring together reference wins. Success looks like a growing, balanced CX Security business across APJ SP, with customers advancing along zero trust, security-by-design, and SOC-modernization journeys that Cisco helped them design and deliver. Security & Service Provider Technical Domains You are expected to bring architect-level expertise across at least two domains — networking and security architecture — with cross-domain fluency over the following: Zero Trust Architecture — zero trust design principles, identity and access, least-privilege/segmented access, and assume-breach patterns at SP scale. Security-by-Design & Infrastructure Controls — segmentation/micro-segmentation, secure connectivity, DDoS protection, secure firewalling, and SP edge/peering security embedded in the fabric. Networking Foundation — SP routing, transport, data center, and edge architectures as the substrate into which security is infused. Observability & Telemetry Engineering — data collection, parsing, ingestion, normalization, enrichment, and federated search across distributed, multi-cloud data estates. Modern SOC & Agentic Operations — high-fidelity, actionable detection use cases, agentic investigation and response, advanced analytics, and SOC modernization. AI-Driven Security — embedding AI and agentic capabilities across the security lifecycle to accelerate detection, investigation, and response. APJ Regional Context This role drives and grows the CX Security business across the APJ Service Provider vertical — operating across Japan, Australia/New Zealand, ASEAN (Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam), and India — markets with varying security maturity and regulatory environments. You will account for the global nature of strategic SP customers while navigating multi-country deployments, data sovereignty, in-country data residency, and security/privacy compliance requirements specific to APJ, and partner with the regional SI and channel-partner ecosystem to orchestrate large-scale transformations. Preferred hiring locations: Indonesia, Malaysia, India. Minimum Qualifications Bachelor's degree + 12 years of related experience, OR Master's degree + 8 years, OR PhD + 5 years, OR equivalent relevant work experience. Deep networking expertise with demonstrated ability to apply zero trust security design principles (verify explicitly, least-privilege access, assume breach) to transform customer security architectures at Service Provider scale. Shown mastery of security-by-design (network segmentation/micro-segmentation and infrastructure controls) AND the design of observability frameworks and a modern SOC for detection and response (data collection, ingestion, normalization, enrichment, federated search, and high-fidelity detection use cases). Practical AI fluency for security: demonstrated experience designing AI-driven detection, investigation, and response and building high-fidelity, agentic/automation-led SOC workflows. Deep technical pre-sales experience AND professional services/delivery experience, holding required certifications: CCNP Service Provider (or CCNP Enterprise/equivalent) AND CCNP Security (or equivalent) AND CISSP (or equivalent senior security architecture certification). Preferred Qualifications Expert-level certifications such as CCIE Service Provider, CCIE Enterprise, or CCIE Security; and/or security architecture frameworks such as SABSA or TOGAF. Zero trust / SOC and security-analytics certifications (e.g., Splunk certifications, SANS/GIAC such as GCIH/GCDA), AI-security credentials, and/or cloud-security specializations (AWS / Azure / GCP). Strong, fluent English (written and spoken) with the executive presence to influence at CISO/CTO/SVP-and-above level across diverse APJ markets. Recognized strategic influencer, comfortable shaping customer security vision and representing Cisco in industry forums and strategic alliances. Skilled at orchestrating the SI and channel-partner ecosystem to deliver large-scale, multi-country Service Provider security transformations. 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.