Senior Staff Software Engineer

Cisco • San Jose, CA

1d

About The Position

As a Senior Staff Software Engineer, you will build real-time, high-throughput data processing systems that ingest and analyze billions of metrics per minute. You will define the technical strategy for our next-generation observability platform, ensuring it continues to scale, perform, and evolve with customer and AI-driven demands.
Partnering closely with product management and engineering teams across Splunk, you will deliver core capabilities that prioritize scalability, reliability, and low-latency performance. Your work will directly shape how customers monitor and operate mission-critical systems worldwide. You will continually drive innovation by evaluating emerging technologies and introducing forward-looking improvements to the platform.

Requirements

• BS in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field plus 12+ years of experience, or MS with 8+ years' experience, or PhD with 5+ years' experience.
• At least 6 months of experience effectively using LLM based coding assistant tools, with a strong AI first mindset.
• 3+ years delivering largescale, distributed SaaS solutions.
• Deep knowledge of microservices and distributed application architectures and understanding when simplification is the better path.
• Strong problem solving and communication skills, able to simplify complex technical concepts for any audience.
• Proficient in Java, with a track record of quickly learning new languages.

Nice To Haves

• Deep domain knowledge in observability and monitoring.
• Robust troubleshooting, profiling, and performance tuning skills.
• DevOps automation mindset with experience in CI/CD pipelines.
• Passion for engineering efficiency and process optimization.

Responsibilities

• Build and optimize petabyte scale ingestion and storage for telemetry data such as Metrics and Events.
• Lead the design of real time analytics and low latency querying for both streaming and batch workflows.
• Drive modernization initiatives and set the technical vision for the platform.
• Establish technical direction for handling high cardinality, high dimensionality, and massive data volumes.
• Develop and enforce system-wide architecture principles: scalability, resilience, security, cost-efficiency, and performance.
• Research, evaluate, and integrate emerging technologies, AI frameworks, and open-source solutions to advance the team’s technical stack and the platform’s scalability and performance.
• Partner closely with product managers to define feature requirements, guide technical execution, and ensure high-quality, predictable delivery across teams.
• Support production systems by diagnosing and resolving difficult escalations quickly, minimizing customer impact, and maintaining service continuity.

Benefits

• 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.
• 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.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level