Senior Software Engineer, Data Engineering

Cisco•San Francisco, CA

30d•$167,700 - $245,200

About The Position

Cisco Network Platform processes telemetry from more than 25 million devices worldwide, ingesting petabytes of data every day. This data powers critical network experiences, operational insights, and customer-facing capabilities across Cisco’s platform. The Data Engineer will build and operate large-scale systems for high-throughput data ingestion, processing, and storage, turning raw device telemetry into reliable, useful data products. The role involves solving distributed-systems challenges at scale and collaborating with engineers across the organization. The position architects and operates scalable data pipelines for petabyte-scale telemetry, engineers resilient distributed systems in Kubernetes environments, and helps ensure the availability and reliability of critical network infrastructure. The engineer collaborates across product and engineering teams to translate data requirements into dependable solutions, establishes observability standards using ELK and Grafana, and integrates AI-assisted engineering tools into the development lifecycle. Deployments must meet rigorous standards for security, validation, and design excellence.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree plus 5 years of related experience, or master’s degree plus 3 years of related experience, or Ph.D. plus 0 years of related experience, or equivalent related work experience.
Experience building, operating, or debugging distributed systems or backend services that process large volumes of telemetry data daily.
Production programming experience using Scala, C++, or Java.
Experience designing and managing data pipelines using real-time streaming or batch-processing frameworks such as Kafka, Spark, or Flink.
Experience deploying and maintaining containerized workloads on Kubernetes clusters in a production environment.

Nice To Haves

Experience with SQL, distributed data stores, or operating cloud-native services in production.
Familiarity with network telemetry, networking protocols, or large fleet-management systems.
Experience with Terraform, Ansible, Elasticsearch, or Grafana for automating infrastructure and monitoring workflows.
Contributions to open-source projects, personal systems projects, or other evidence of technical curiosity.
A pragmatic, organized approach to software quality, testing, and operational ownership, with strong problem-solving skills and enthusiasm for working with complex systems at scale.

Responsibilities

Architect and operate scalable data pipelines that ingest petabyte-scale telemetry from more than 25 million network devices.
Build and maintain high-throughput data ingestion, processing, and storage systems that turn raw telemetry into reliable data products.
Engineer resilient, high-performance distributed systems in Kubernetes environments.
Collaborate with product and engineering teams to translate complex data requirements into dependable solutions.
Establish observability standards using ELK and Grafana to identify issues proactively and streamline system recovery.
Integrate AI-assisted engineering tools to accelerate the development lifecycle.
Ensure deployments meet security, validation, and design standards.

Benefits

Medical insurance
Dental insurance
Vision insurance
401(k) plan with Cisco matching contribution
Paid parental leave
Short- and long-term disability coverage
Basic life insurance
Paid holidays and a floating holiday for non-exempt employees
Paid birthday day off, year-end holiday shutdown, and personal wellness days
Paid vacation time for non-exempt employees; eligible exempt employees participate in a flexible vacation program
Paid sick time, with eligible unused time carried forward
Additional paid time away may be requested for critical or emergency family issues
Optional paid volunteer days
Annual bonuses for eligible non-sales employees
Potential Cisco restricted stock unit grants