Leader, Software Engineering

Cisco•Milpitas, CA

10d•$214,100 - $309,800

About The Position

Cisco’s Cloud Security Engineering organization develops technology that helps customers secure their networks and users. The Senior Manager will lead software engineering teams focused on SaaS products, overseeing the design, development, testing, and deployment of robust cloud-based software solutions. Within the Control Plane organization, this leader will help design, develop, and operate key microservices for cloud network experience, traffic optimization, and insights provided by the Umbrella and Cisco Secure Access products. The role calls for strategic leadership, a strong software engineering background, and experience managing people and teams.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree or higher in engineering or computer science.
At least 12 years of overall experience, including at least 2 years in people management and experience managing multiple teams.
Experience with container orchestration, such as AWS ECS or EKS; event-driven architectures such as Kafka; and high-throughput data stores such as MySQL or Redis.
Experience with multiple programming languages, such as Python and/or Go, and practical experience with cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or GCP; AWS is preferred.
Experience with modern software development practices, including CI/CD and DevOps.
Experience building agentic systems and using AI to improve productivity across the software development lifecycle.
Excellent verbal, written, and presentation skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively with multifunctional teams in a fast-paced environment.
Strong sense of ownership and initiative, and commitment to developing talent and supporting team growth.

Nice To Haves

Experience with security platforms or areas such as zero trust, SSE/SASE, ZTNA, SWG, CASB, DLP, FWaaS, DNS security, browser isolation, or digital experience monitoring.
Proven experience designing and managing API gateways for diverse client interactions in a secure, scalable SaaS environment.
Deep working knowledge of observability stacks such as Datadog, Splunk, or Prometheus, and SRE practices.
Experience operating services at scale with high availability requirements of 99.99% or higher.
Experience operating in regulated environments and knowledge of security compliance frameworks such as SOC 2, GDPR, or FedRAMP.
Demonstrated success performance-tuning database queries, managing stateful services in containerized environments, and ensuring cache efficiency in high-traffic applications.

Responsibilities

Lead fast-paced Cisco cloud security teams in designing, developing, and delivering production-quality applications that are scalable, supportable, and maintainable.
Partner with internal and external teams to understand business and technical requirements, plan work, and deliver solutions.
Develop excellent working relationships.
Align with and influence company and organization goals, understand inter-company dependencies, and develop action plans to address problems.
Act as a customer advocate and designated point of contact for selected customers.
Understand complex network-level technical problems and drive the team to solve them.
Set clear expectations and goals for individuals and the team, and drive work using objectives and key results with measurable metrics.
Recognize individuals and teams for outstanding impact.
Provide strong technical vision for the team and ensure consistent delivery on objectives.

Benefits

Medical, dental, and vision insurance, subject to plan eligibility rules.
401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution.
Paid parental leave.
Short- and long-term disability coverage.
Basic life insurance.
Cisco restricted stock unit grants may be available, subject to eligibility and vesting conditions.
10 paid holidays per full calendar year and, for non-exempt employees, one floating holiday.
Paid birthday day off, paid year-end holiday shutdown, and four paid personal wellness days.
Non-exempt employees receive 16 vacation days per full calendar year, accrued for full-time employees.
Exempt employees participate in a flexible vacation time-off program with no defined usage limit, subject to availability and business limitations.
80 hours of sick time provided at hire and each January 1, with up to 80 unused hours carried forward.
Additional paid time away may be requested for critical or emergency family issues.
Optional 10 paid volunteer days per full calendar year.
Employees in non-sales roles may be eligible for annual bonuses, subject to Cisco policies.