Software Engineering Architect
About The Position
Cisco’s Security & Trust Organization (STO) is hiring for its Cryptographic Services team, which builds and operates zero-trust infrastructure for digital identities and secrets. The team operates an enterprise secrets management platform built on Vault Enterprise and a private PKI and certificate authority platform on AWS EKS, supporting multi-cloud and high-compliance environments, including FedRAMP and DoD IL5. The role combines platform engineering, cloud architecture, and Site Reliability Engineering to build resilient infrastructure. The engineer will help scale Vault clusters and containerized CA workloads, modernize infrastructure through GitOps, automate platform lifecycles, enable tenant migrations, implement compliance controls, improve telemetry and operational practices, and assess emerging identity and secrets technologies. Cisco describes its work as connecting and protecting organizations in the AI era. The company emphasizes innovation, collaboration, and opportunities to grow. For U.S. and/or Canada locations, the stated starting salary range is $139,300 to $203,600, with location-specific ranges also provided. U.S. benefits include medical, dental and vision insurance, a 401(k) with matching contribution, paid parental leave, disability coverage, basic life insurance, paid holidays and other time away, and possible restricted stock unit grants. Non-sales employees may also be eligible for annual bonuses.
Requirements
- At least 8 years of experience in DevOps, SRE, or Cloud Engineering, supported by a technical degree or practical experience.
- Hands-on experience deploying and leading HashiCorp Vault at scale, including Raft, replication, and disaster recovery.
- Deep knowledge of AWS, including EKS, IAM, KMS, and VPC, and Kubernetes orchestration.
- Experience building modular, reusable Terraform and Terragrunt environments and robust CI/CD pipelines, such as GitLab or GitHub Actions.
- Proficiency in Go, Python, or Bash for operational tooling and API-driven automation.
- Experience supporting 24x7 production environments and leading incident responses.
Nice To Haves
- Experience operating in regulated environments such as FedRAMP, SOC 2, or ISO 27001.
- Knowledge of HSMs, including CloudHSM or Thales Luna, and certificate management protocols such as ACME, EST, or SCEP.
- Familiarity with OPA, Kyverno, or HashiCorp Sentinel.
- Exposure to enterprise database replication or complex middleware tiers.
Responsibilities
- Drive the reliability and scalability of Vault clusters and containerized certificate authority workloads across FedRAMP, IL5, and commercial environments.
- Maintain modular Terraform and Terragrunt configurations, Helm charts, and Argo CD Application Sets to advance GitOps infrastructure.
- Lead zero-downtime upgrades and image pipelines using Packer and Docker, integrated with CI/CD and incident response workflows.
- Build scalable isolation models that enable business units to migrate legacy cryptographic workloads to modern automated platforms.
- Implement Policy-as-Code using tools such as Sentinel and OPA, and ensure infrastructure meets FIPS 140-3 and audit standards.
- Own end-to-end telemetry using Prometheus, Grafana, and Splunk; lead root-cause analysis and improve operational runbooks.
- Evaluate and prototype emerging identity and secrets technologies, such as OpenBao and Infisical.
- Support production environments and lead incident responses using a blameless, growth-oriented approach.
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
- Floating holiday for non-exempt employees
- Birthday paid day off
- Paid year-end holiday shutdown
- Personal wellness days
- Flexible vacation time off program for eligible exempt employees
- Paid vacation time for non-exempt employees
- Sick time off
- Additional paid time away may be requested for critical or emergency family issues
- Optional paid volunteer days
- Annual bonuses may be available for non-sales roles
- Possible grants of Cisco restricted stock units
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
No Education Listed
