Business Development Manager

The application window is expected to close on: 10/23/2026

This role can be performed remotely from: Maryland, Washington DC or Northern Virginia only

Meet the Team

You will join Splunk’s U.S. Public Sector Strategic Programs and Business Development team, a collaborative group focused on identifying, shaping, and advancing strategic enterprise opportunities across the Federal Government. Our team partners across Cisco and Splunk sales, engineering, alliances, capture, and executive leadership, as well as with Federal System Integrators (FSIs) and technology partners, to engage early and align advanced software capabilities with complex mission requirements. In this role, you will work across the broader Cisco and Splunk ecosystem to serve as a key business development resource for our National Security and Intelligence Community programs.

The Role

The Business Development Manager – National Security is responsible for identifying, shaping, and advancing strategic growth opportunities across the U.S. National Security market, with a primary focus on the Intelligence Community (IC) and classified federal programs.

Operating ahead of traditional procurement cycles, this role identifies emerging mission modernization priorities, funded initiatives, acquisition strategies, and technology requirements where Splunk and Cisco software solutions deliver measurable operational value. You will lead early capture and business development activities for multi-year federal opportunities, coordinating across sales, systems engineering, product management, alliances, system integrators, and proposal teams.

Your Impact:

• Lead business development activities across designated National Security and Intelligence Community accounts, identifying and shaping strategic opportunities prior to formal RFP release.

• Develop and execute multi-year account growth strategies aligned with agency mission priorities, modernization mandates, IT budgets, and federal acquisition forecasts.

• Establish and maintain professional relationships with government mission leaders, Chief Information Officers (CIOs), Chief Technology Officers (CTOs), program managers, and acquisition officials within classified and unclassified environments.

• Identify emerging programs of record, mission capability gaps, funding priorities, contract vehicles, recompetes, and procurement trends that create market opportunities for Splunk and Cisco solutions.

• Translate National Security mission and operational requirements into structured technology initiatives spanning cybersecurity, enterprise data analytics, AI/ML operations, observability, digital resilience, and cloud infrastructure.

• Lead early-stage opportunity capture planning, including stakeholder mapping, competitive analysis, win-theme formulation, teaming strategy, and technical solution alignment.

• Partner with Federal System Integrators (FSIs), defense prime contractors, and channel partners to identify joint opportunities and embed Splunk/Cisco capabilities into prime contractor program proposals.

• Maintain a qualified strategic pipeline and deliver structured updates to sales leadership regarding opportunity maturity, procurement milestones, competitive positioning, and probability of win (Pwin).

• Collaborate with internal capture, proposal, legal, and engineering teams to align corporate resources and technical demonstrations against priority government pursuits.

• Author executive briefings, market assessments, capture plans, and business justifications to support strategic investment decisions and resource allocation.

• Utilize authorized market research tools, procurement databases (e.g., GovWin, SAM.gov), and analytics platforms to conduct market intelligence and competitive analysis.

• Represent Splunk and Cisco at National Security industry conferences, agency industry days, technology symposia, and partner forums.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in business administration, Information Technology, Computer Science, National Security Studies, Engineering, or a related field plus a minimum of 8 years of relevant professional experience; OR Master’s degree in a related field plus a minimum of 6 years of relevant professional experience

• A minimum of 12 years of relevant professional experience in federal business development or capture management in lieu of a degree.

• Security Clearance: Active, current Top Secret / Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) security clearance with an active background investigation at time of application. 

• Minimum 8 years of direct experience in U.S. Federal business development, capture management, technical sales, solutions architecture, or mission consulting supporting the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) or National Security agencies. This includes, experience developing and executing early-stage capture strategies, stakeholder engagement plans, and pipeline qualification for U.S. Federal Government technology programs. 

• Experience collaborating with Tier-1 Federal System Integrators (FSIs) and defense prime contractors on joint opportunity pursuits and teaming arrangements. 

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience driving business development, capture, or mission advisory across multiple Intelligence Community (IC) agencies (such as NSA, NGA, CIA, NRO, DIA, or ODNI). 

• Experience supporting multi-year federal programs or strategic captures with total contract values exceeding $25M+. 

• Subject matter expertise positioning enterprise cybersecurity, SIEM, observability, log analytics, zero trust, or AI/ML technologies within classified government architectures. 

• Experience negotiating teaming agreements, work-share allocations, and sub-contracting structures with major Federal System Integrators and prime contractors. 

• Practical working knowledge of federal acquisition vehicles, including IDIQs, GWACs (e.g., NASA SEWP, GSA MAS, CIO-SP3/4, Alliant 2), and Other Transaction Authorities (OTAs). 

• Experience authoring executive white papers, capture plans, and technical value propositions for Senior Executive Service (SES), General Officer/Flag Officer (GO/FO), and C-level stakeholders. 

• Top Secret clearance with CI/ Full Scope / Lifestyle Polygraph. 

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 $311,000.00 to $393,000.00 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:

$319,100.00 - $491,800.00

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:

$311,000.00 - $452,000.00

* 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.