Interconnects Technical Sourcing Commodity Manager (Hybrid) 2000917

Cisco • Austin, TX

7d • Hybrid

About The Position

As a Technical Commodity Sourcing Manager for Interconnects, you own technical decisions and cost outcomes for interconnect commodities by partnering closely with hardware engineering, manufacturing, and supplier engineering teams. You sit at the intersection of engineering, manufacturing, and supplier technology development—helping bring Cisco products to life that do not yet exist. You will influence design decisions, enable supplier technical readiness, and remove development barriers from concept through mass production.
Your work directly impacts Cisco’s ability to deliver innovative, high-performance networking and AI systems at scale—ensuring designs are manufacturable, resilient, and production-ready while meeting aggressive performance and reliability requirements.
This role is engineering-facing, technically hands-on, and requires comfort engaging in detailed technical discussions related to interconnect design, materials, and manufacturing processes.
While the role works closely with suppliers, it is not a procurement, purchasing, or category management position.
Success in this role requires direct experience supporting hardware designs through development, manufacturing, and scale, including hands-on technical problem solving with supplier engineering teams.
Cisco’s Global Supplier Management (GSM) organization partners deeply with hardware engineering, manufacturing, and industry-leading suppliers to enable next-generation technologies across Cisco’s networking and AI platforms. Our team focuses on early technical engagement, supplier capability development, and execution excellence—ensuring Cisco designs are ready to scale from prototype through mass production.

Requirements

• 5+ years technical experience in interconnect technologies (e.g., cables, connectors, high-speed interconnect systems), including design support and manufacturing engagement.
• 5+ years experience working directly with hardware design engineering teams on New Product Introductions (NPI).
• 5+ years experience engaging suppliers on technical development, qualification, and manufacturing readiness, cost negotiations, should-cost modeling, contract management, and obtaining quotations (RFQ/RFI process) from suppliers.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree in mechanical engineering or related field.
• Experience with high-density Twinax cables, GPU systems, rack-level integration, and configured deployments.
• Strong working knowledge of interconnect engineering and design principles, including:
• Design for Manufacturability (DFM) / Design for Assembly (DFA)
• Sheet metal and injection molding processes
• Material properties and material science
• Dimensional tolerance analysis
• Corrosion resistance and environmental protection
• Signal integrity, heat transfer, and fluid dynamics
• Experience supporting mass production ramp-up and global manufacturing enablement.
• Experience assessing component and technology risk with mitigation planning.
• Familiarity with AI system architectures and high-performance computing platforms.
• Excellent technical communication, problem-solving, and stakeholder engagement skills.

Responsibilities

• Engineering & Technology Alignment | Partner with Hardware Design Engineering, Component Engineering, and Manufacturing to align supplier technologies with Cisco’s product architecture and roadmap. Participate in technical design reviews with internal teams and suppliers, evaluating feasibility, manufacturability, and performance tradeoffs. Drive early supplier technical engagement for new designs and architectures.
• Supplier Technical Leadership | Lead supplier technology roadmap discussions, assessing design approaches, materials, processes, and manufacturing capabilities. Technical escalation point for supplier-related design, yield, reliability, and manufacturability issues. Hold suppliers accountable to development milestones, technical readiness, and qualification schedules.
• NPI Execution & Scale Readiness | Lead/Own supplier technical readiness from prototype through mass production. Facilitate hands-on collaboration between supplier engineering teams and Cisco engineers to resolve design and manufacturing issues. Support ramp readiness, yield improvement, and transition from NPI into sustained production.
• Value Engineering & Multi-Sourcing | Drive value engineering initiatives that improve cost efficiency without compromising technical performance or reliability. Identify and develop second-source strategies that strengthen design robustness and supply flexibility.
• Supply Resilience & Risk Management | Support geographic diversification and non-China manufacturing strategies. Identify technical and manufacturing risks; develop mitigation plans in partnership with engineering and suppliers.
• Business Reviews & Technical Reporting | Lead supplier reviews covering technology readiness, NPI execution, yield, capacity, and risk. Provide clear technical status updates to cross-functional leadership.
• Operational Excellence | Partner with Component Engineering on quality investigations and corrective actions. Drive continuous improvement using Lean and Six Sigma methodologies. Define technical KPIs and enable data-driven execution across suppliers.
• Additional responsibilities may be assigned based on evolving business priorities.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level