Sourcing Commodity Manager (remote)

Meet the Team: 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.

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 diverse methodologies. Define technical KPIs and enable data-driven execution across suppliers. Additional responsibilities may be assigned based on evolving business priorities. Minimum Required Qualifications 7+ years technical experience in memory and storage technologies (especially for NAND solutions - SSD, eMMC, UFS, uSD, etc), including design support and manufacturing engagement.10+ years experience working directly with hardware design engineering teams on New Product Introductions (NPI).10+ 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. Preferred

Qualifications: Master's degree in mechanical engineering or related field. Experience with memory and storage technology or in memory suppliers. Familiarity with AI system architectures and high-performance computing platforms. Excellent technical communication, problem-solving, and stakeholder engagement skills.