Software Engineering Technical Leader

About the role

The application window is expected to close on: 12/23/2026

Meet the Team

The Cisco Distributed System Engineering (DSE) group is at the forefront of developing products that power the largest networks in the world. The networking industry is going through a massive transformation to build the next generation infrastructure to meet the needs of AI/ML workloads and continuously increasing internet users and applications. We are uniquely positioned to capture that market transition. This team builds products by harnessing the potential of open-source technologies while pushing the boundaries on Systems and Silicon Architecture.

Your Impact

As a Software Engineering Technical Leader you will lead the design and implementation of advanced SONiC networking capabilities across SRv6, uSID, MRC, IPM, BGP, EVPN, VXLAN, and AI-scale data-center fabrics. Partners with architecture, product management, hardware, platform, and customer teams to deliver production-ready solutions across SONiC, FRR, SAI, Linux, and merchant-silicon platforms.

Creates technical design and user documentation, debugs complex issues across development and production environments, drives upstream open-source contributions, and brings new ideas that improve Cisco's competitiveness in data-center and AI networking.

• Recognized as a technical expert in SONiC, SRv6, MRC, and AI infrastructure networking.
• Leads the architecture and development of complex features across SONiC, FRR, SAI, Linux, and merchant-silicon platforms.
• Drives SRv6/uSID, MRC, and IPM capabilities from technical design through implementation, validation, and production readiness.
• Develops solutions for traffic engineering, packet spraying, multipath resiliency, failure recovery, telemetry, performance measurement, and large-scale network fabrics.
• Leads integration and validation on Broadcom Tomahawk and Cisco Silicon One platforms.
• Drives interoperability between SONiC, IOS XR, and other industry routing platforms.
• Proactively identifies and resolves complex software, protocol, performance, scale, and hardware-integration issues.
• Develops and delivers innovative technical strategies for AI backend, scale-up, scale-out, cloud, and hyperscale data-center networks.
• Leads major projects that influence Cisco's SONiC product direction and open networking strategy.
• Contributes to SONiC, SAI, FRR, OCP, IETF, and other open-source and industry initiatives.
• Defines and drives unit, system, scale, interoperability, regression, and fault-injection testing strategies.
• Builds long-term relationships with internal teams, customers, partners, and industry stakeholders.
• Represents Cisco in technical forums, working groups, customer engagements, and external industry events.
• Leads features from technical design through completion while negotiating trade-offs in architecture, performance, schedule, and product requirements.
• Leads, mentors, and influences senior engineers while improving technical knowledge sharing across the organization.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree plus 12 years of related experience, or Master's degree plus 8 years of related experience, or PhD plus 5 years of related experience.
• Experience with network operating systems.
• Experience with routing and switching software like BGP, SONiC, SRv6, or large-scale data-center networking.
• 8 + years of software development experience using C, C++, or Python

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced technical acumen with the ability to serve as a technical advisor to engineering and business leadership.
• Hands-on experience with SONiC, SRv6/uSID, MRC, IPM, BGP, EVPN, VXLAN, VPN, MPLS, and Ethernet fabrics.
• Experience with FRR, SAI, Linux networking, Broadcom Tomahawk, merchant silicon, or Cisco Silicon One.
• Experience with AI infrastructure, hyperscale networks, leaf-spine fabrics, scale-up/scale-out architectures, or GPU networking.
• Experience with IOS XR interoperability, Secure Boot, HSM/PKCS#11 signing, platform integration, and trusted software workflows.
• Contributions to SONiC or other open-source projects, technical publications, patents, standards bodies, or industry forums.

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.

Pay and benefits

The starting salary range posted for this position is $214,100.00 to $309,800.00 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:

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state: $192,400.00 - $317,200.00

• 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.