Director, Platform Specialists - AI

Job posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or if a sufficient number of applications are received.

The Global Specialists Organization at Splunk is committed to accelerating business growth through deep product expertise, exceptional go-to-market (GTM) strategies, and world-class sales execution. Our mission is to enable Splunk's geo and global teams and partners with specialized knowledge, tools, and alignment, driving adoption, scale, and innovation across all regions.

The Platform Specialist Director will be responsible for setting the technical vision and strategy for the AI specialist team, drive the strategic alignment of Splunk's AI product areas with global go-to-market initiatives and build, test, and operationalize field enablement assets to support incubation and scaling of new solution areas. We collaborate closely across functions, leveraging diverse expertise and perspectives to create value and solve complex challenges. This is an ideal position for someone who has a proven record of building and scaling high-performance solutions engineering, architect or strategy teams in a fast-paced sales and technology company.

The AI Specialist team has responsibility for these distinct functions

GTM Strategy

• Develop and execute product area GTM strategies and plan in partnership with Product and Sales teams.

• Ensure cross-functional interlock across Marketing, Product, and Sales to deliver impactful campaigns.

• Lead campaign planning and support field activation for new and existing solutions.

GTM Build & New Product Introduction

• Develop and maintain demo environments, proof of concept (POC) materials, and customer & field-facing collateral

• Partner with regional theatres to activate GTM initiatives, collect feedback, and iterate on enablement.

• Ensure readiness and rapid adoption of new products across all global markets.

AI Technology Leadership

• Technology leadership: Defining technical vision and strategy for customer CTO level priorities.

• Team leadership: Attract, retain and develop the best talent in the industry: coaching, mentoring, career development, and career pathing within and outside the team.

Specialist Team Management

• Establish and complete efficient processes to drive efficiency and effectiveness to the AI Solutions team.

• Optimize organizational structure (always happening) in partnership with Leadership aligned to business priorities to overachieve top and bottom-line fiscal objectives while effectively meeting operational expense targets.

• Drive adoption and visibility of Platform AI capabilities

• Develop and build new GTM motions, conversations, collateral to drive adoption of AI capabilities, principally with Platform but across product areas

CTO, Sales, Marketing and Product Management Partner

• Ability to clearly articulate issues, challenges, and gaps technically and from a business perspective

• Partner with BU entities to support and drive the GTM motions cycle, and serve as a subject matter expert for relevant internal organisations

• Partner with Product Management and engineering on thematic needs of customers, to optimize existing AI use cases and address new use cases

• Partner with Splunk AI Product and engineering to share customer findings, influence Splunk's product roadmap

• Minimum of 10 years of professional experience in technical pre-sales, technical consulting, or systems engineering roles.

• Minimum of 5 years of experience in a leadership or management capacity (e.g., Team Lead, Manager, or Principal Architect) within the technology sector.

• Experience managing the end-to-end pre-sales lifecycle, including resource allocation and KPI tracking. Must demonstrate a track record of improving staff retention or development (e.g., meeting specific internal promotion or retention targets).

• Possession of relevant technical certifications (e.g., Splunk Certified Architect) and a documented history of delivering at least 3-5 customer solutions involving Machine Learning, AI, or Splunk Platform integrations.

• Ability to apply AI/ML frameworks to business use cases, as evidenced by previous project delivery or the creation of technical content (whitepapers, blogs, or presentations) regarding emerging market trends.

• Proven track record of leading technical projects that resulted in measurable customer outcomes, such as a specific percentage increase in technology adoption or a defined Return on Investment (ROI).

• A depth of experience and knowledge in Data Science, Machine Learning and AI methods, tools and technologies, specifically related to Splunk AI and its key apps (e.g. MLTK, DSDL).

• Background in security or observability platforms, and knowledge of strategies for operationalizing logs and/or metrics across infrastructure providers (i.e., on-premises, Amazon Web Services, Azure, and/or Google Cloud Platform

• Operatingacross Global time zones and open to travel occasionally for team alignment, internal collaborator or customer engagements, and industry/company events.

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.

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 ofunused sick timecarried forwardfrom one calendar yearto 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:

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:

* 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.