Principal Corporate Counsel: Incubation & Enterprise AI

The application window is expected to close on: 10/28/2026
“Members of the Legal organization at  select locations  will generally be expected to follow a hybrid work model, which includes two days of in-office attendance each week, with limited exceptions.”

Meet the Team

Join our dynamic and strategic Incubation, Data & AI (IDA) Legal team. This role is an exciting opportunity to join our growing team and provide critical legal support to Outshift by Cisco.  Outshift is Cisco’s emerging technology incubation engine and advanced innovation organization, with a core mission to explore, research, build, and bring “Shift-Left” and “Shift-Ahead” technologies to market before they hit mainstream adoption.  Outshift leads Cisco’s exploration and development of quantum networking technologies, under the umbrella of Cisco Research, and also includes the Open Source Program Office (OSPO).  In this role, you will also provide legal support to Cisco’s Enterprise AI Platforms & Infrastructure team, which leads Cisco’s enterprise AI applications like CIRCUIT and MyAgent.

Your Impact

- You will serve as a key legal partner to fast-paced, dynamic incubation teams, focused on building and graduating (or otherwise offloading) truly innovative projects at Cisco.

- You will provide valuable, dynamic legal guidance to teams as they collaborate and partner with third parties to ideate, build, prototype, and evolve emerging technologies.

- You will help ensure compliance by design, working cross-functionally within and outside of Legal.

- You will work with other Legal subject-matter experts to provide agile legal guidance on a range of issues, including joint development and partnerships, regulatory risk, IP and patent protection, data governance and privacy, and AI ethics and risk.

- You will provide clear and actionable guidance on complex business and legal issues.

- You will leverage and deploy AI to accelerate and streamline guidance to the business teams you support.

- You will enable clients to internally deploy, launch, and graduate innovations in a way that builds trust with users and meets your clients’ innovative velocity.

Minimum Qualifications

- Education & Experience: Juris Doctor (JD) with 8+ years of experience in a law firm or in-house legal department.

- Subject Matter Expertise: Demonstrated experience in product counseling, technology law and transactions, and IP licensing.

- Analytical Rigor: Ability to synthesize complex, ambiguous regulatory landscapes into clear, business-centric advice.
- Communication: Exceptional drafting and negotiation skills with the ability to translate nuanced technical and legal concepts into actionable guidance for executives and engineers.

Preferred Qualifications

- Specialized Experience : Experience serving as a legal counsel to dynamic and fast-paced product teams; general familiarity with open source legal issues, research agreements, brand protection and marketing issues.

- Intellectual Property : Background in IP and/or patent law.

- Certifications: External AI governance, privacy, or security certifications (e.g., AIGP, CIPP, CISSP).

- Team Dynamics : Experience working optimally in cross-functional, global teams.
- Adaptability: A proactive, “builder” mindset; comfortable working in a rapidly evolving environment.

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 $192,300.00 to $243,900.00 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:
$225,000.00 - $336,300.00

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:
$205,600.00 - $298,900.00

* 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.