Partner Account Executive - Federal

Our Team

Our team focuses on owning and orchestrating Partner business relationships, acting as trusted advisors to understand partner business models, strategies, and capabilities. We work to align partner ecosystems with Cisco’s technology portfolio to drive innovation, market expansion, and competitive differentiation.

Your Impact

You will drive growth and profitability by guiding partner business strategies toward the adoption and expansion of Cisco technologies. Your key contributions will include:

• Strategic Planning: Developing and executing strategic partner account plans and multi-year roadmaps to optimize performance and transformation.
• Capability Development: Building and strengthening partner practices and developing differentiated Go-To-Market (GTM) strategies.
• Demand Generation: Planning activities that align partner offerings with customer needs to create a robust pipeline.
• Business Optimization: Maximizing partner programs, incentives, and investments while monitoring performance through data-driven insights and QBRs.
• Internal Advocacy: Engaging sales teams early and advocating for partners within internal teams to integrate their capabilities into account plans.
• Executive Influence: Influencing C-level executives through compelling business narratives and mentoring other Partner Account Engineers (PAEs).

Minimum Qualifications

• 3+ years in technology sales, relationship building
• Ability to establish and maintain trusted advisor relationships with partners.
• Experience understanding business models, strategy, and leveraging market trends to position technologies.
• Ability to manage business performance, forecasting, and performance monitoring.
• Ability to work across internal teams, including solution engineers and practice sellers.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience developing complex initiatives for market differentiation and creating business cases for executive leadership.
• Ability to share predictive market analyses and emerging tech shifts to cement strategic trust.
• Experience co-developing technical roadmaps with SMEs to address systemic challenges.
• Ability to suggest enhancements to partner programs based on industry or geopolitical shifts.
• Proven track record of managing a substantial book of business, including large partners or multiple smaller relationships.

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 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:

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.