Senior Software Engineering Manager - DPU & AI Cloud Infrastructure

Cisco•Milpitas, CA

1d•$210,600 - $350,800•Hybrid

About The Position

Cisco is building next-generation infrastructure software for enterprise AI factories, neocloud providers, sovereign cloud environments, and modern data center fabrics. These platforms must turn complex GPU, server, network, security, and DPU-enabled infrastructure into secure, multi-tenant AI infrastructure services that are simple to deploy, operate, observe, and scale. We are seeking a hands-on Senior Software Engineering Manager to lead a team working at the intersection of systems software, Linux networking, DPU and SmartNIC acceleration, distributed security, infrastructure orchestration, observability, and production operations. You will stay close to architecture, prototypes, technical risk retirement, design reviews, debugging, and quality decisions while hiring, coaching, and growing a strong engineering team. You should be comfortable moving between strategy and code-level detail, between customer outcomes and low-level systems behavior, and between innovation exploration and disciplined production execution.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree + 15 years of related experience with C/C++, Python, Go, or Master's + 12 years of related experience with C/C++, Python, Go
5+ years of supervisory or management experience leading software engineering teams with consistent record delivering complex production software across multiple teams, functions, or product areas
Experience running engineering teams in networking, systems software, distributed systems, security platforms, infrastructure software, or hardware-accelerated platforms
Strong technical credibility, including the ability to participate in architecture, design, debugging, and implementation tradeoffs
Experience leading ambiguous early-stage technical efforts from exploration through production readiness
Deep understanding of Linux systems, host networking, packet processing, routing, policy enforcement, virtualization, containers, and production debugging
Experience with distributed control planes, configuration systems, lifecycle management, and recovery behavior
Familiarity with DPU, SmartNIC, NIC offload, NPU, ASIC, or hardware-accelerated networking architectures
Experience with CI/CD, test automation, observability, performance analysis, health checks, upgrade safety, rollback strategy, and production support
Strong understanding of secure development practices and security architecture for distributed infrastructure systems

Nice To Haves

Experience with DPU or SmartNIC platforms, programmable packet processing, kernel bypass, hardware offload, or high-performance networking
Experience with packet-processing and networking technologies such as VPP, DPDK, OVS, eBPF/XDP, tc, SR-IOV, VF/PF, P4 or P4-like pipelines, Kubernetes networking, CNI, routing, or virtual networking
Experience designing or working with network abstraction interfaces, hardware abstraction layers, SAI-like APIs, SDK abstraction layers, or portable control-plane/data-plane interfaces
Experience building or operating host networking platforms, cloud networking services, network security systems, SDN platforms, service meshes, or infrastructure orchestration platforms
Understanding of AI/HPC cluster networking behavior, including RDMA/RoCE, congestion management, telemetry, failure diagnosis, and performance isolation
Experience leading teams where the work required prototyping, technical discovery, architecture choices, and production delivery
Automation or AI-assisted tooling to improve engineering velocity, quality, debugging, and operational readiness

Responsibilities

Shape the architecture and engineering direction for AI cloud infrastructure and DPU-enabled networking capabilities
Lead a team responsible for core infrastructure software that makes high-performance AI cloud environments deployable, secure, observable, and supportable
Participate directly in architecture reviews, design deep dives, prototype reviews, code reviews, debugging, and technical decision-making
Drive platform capabilities across infrastructure lifecycle, host networking, tenant isolation, policy enforcement, service integration, health, telemetry, and operational workflows
Evaluate emerging technologies, retire high-risk assumptions early, and guide pragmatic paths from prototype to production
Make strong technical tradeoffs across performance, reliability, security, portability, cost, debuggability, and operational simplicity
Build repeatable engineering practices for validation, automation, rollout, diagnostics, upgrade safety, and production readiness
Build a climate of innovation where engineers simplify complex systems, question inherited assumptions, and turn hard infrastructure problems into reusable platform capabilities
Hire, lead, mentor, and retain a high-performing team of technical leads, senior software engineers, and systems engineers
Partner across engineering, product, hardware, firmware, security, operations, and customer-facing teams to deliver coherent platform outcomes

Benefits

medical, dental and vision insurance
a 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution
paid parental leave
short and long-term disability coverage
basic life insurance
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
16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year, accrued at rate of 4.92 hours per pay period for full-time employees (non-exempt)
flexible vacation time off program (exempt)
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
optional 10 paid days per full calendar year to volunteer
annual bonuses (non-sales roles)
performance-based incentive pay (sales roles)