Senior Staff Software Engineer

Cisco•San Jose, CA

About The Position

Cisco is shaping the future of AI-powered quality for Enterprise Security and modern Security Operations Center workflows. Our team is focused on building scalable quality foundations, advanced test automation, evaluation frameworks, and performance validation for complex AI-driven security products. We partner closely with Engineering, Product, Security, and Quality teams to improve reliability, scalability, security, and customer trust across mission-critical platforms. As a Senior Staff Software Engineer, you will define and drive the technical strategy for AI-powered quality, agentic workflow validation, benchmarking, and automation frameworks. You will lead complex technical initiatives, mentor senior engineers, and help establish quality practices that scale across teams and products.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree with 12+ years of experience in software development, quality engineering, or test automation.
5+ years of experience architecting large-scale test automation platforms or quality engineering ecosystems.
5+ years software development experience in Python and playwright.
5+ years experience designing scalable, maintainable, and high-performance test infrastructure.
1+ years experience using AI-assisted tools or AI agents to build and scale test automation.

Nice To Haves

Strong technical leadership skills with the ability to turn ambiguous quality challenges into clear technical strategy.
Experience with AI/ML testing, LLM APIs, prompt engineering, agentic workflows, and LLM-as-judge evaluation.
Experience with Claude, Codex, or similar AI development and evaluation tools.
Experience with performance tools such as JMeter, or similar test environments.
Strong ability to collaborate across Engineering, Product, Security, Compliance, and Quality teams.
Passion for mentoring engineers and building a culture of automation, accountability, and customer-focused quality.

Responsibilities

Define the architecture and roadmap for Product Quality foundations, test automation, and AI-agent evaluation frameworks.
Lead validation strategies for AI agents, complex SOC workflows, tenant isolation, audit logs, and system behavior.
Identify gaps in current testing methods and build AI-based automation solutions to improve quality, coverage, and efficiency.
Establish benchmarking, performance testing, and regression frameworks for scalable and reliable product validation.
Mentor engineers, review technical designs, and guide teams through complex quality and automation challenges.
Lead proof-of-concepts and define clear success criteria for new testing approaches and AI-assisted automation.
Partner with Engineering and Product leaders to embed quality earlier in the development lifecycle.
Drive standards for contract testing, compliance validation, performance testing, and behavioral regression.
Ensure testing processes deliver reliable, repeatable, and high-quality outcomes at enterprise scale.

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
4 paid days off for personal wellness determined by Cisco
16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year (non-exempt employees)
flexible vacation time off program (exempt employees)
80 hours of sick time off provided on hire date and each January 1st thereafter
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
annual bonuses (for non-sales roles)
performance-based incentive pay (for sales roles)