Software Engineering Technical Leader

Cisco•Milpitas, CA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

This team builds and supports networking products leveraging Cisco IOS-XR and open-source technologies, operating at the intersection of systems and silicon. The environment spans hyper-scale data centers, cloud infrastructure, and highly distributed systems where reliability, scalability, and customer outcomes are critical. The team combines deep platform and networking expertise with modern automation and data-driven approaches, including AI-assisted workflows, to accelerate issue resolution and improve product behavior in production. This role sits at the center of customer engagement, production support, and engineering collaboration, serving as a key bridge between customers and internal teams. You will play a critical role in strengthening the team’s ability to design, deploy, and troubleshoot large-scale datacenter and cloud networking environments while scaling operational excellence through automation and intelligent tooling!

Requirements

Bachelors degree + 7 years of related experience, or Masters + 5 years of related experience, or PhD + 2 years of related experience.
Hands-on experience with routing and switching technologies in production environments or advanced lab settings
Experience with Python programming skills, including building automation, parsing workflows, and troubleshooting tools (beyond basic scripting)
Experience working with structured data and operational telemetry, including experience with time-series concepts, anomaly detection, or similar analytical approaches
Experience with AI-assisted tools or workflows in engineering environments, including safe and effective use of GenAI or LLM-based APIs for operational support

Nice To Haves

Strong Linux experience supporting lab, tooling, or production-adjacent environments
Background in system architecture, deployment engineering, or field engineering within Tier-1 enterprise or hyperscale environments
Experience building scalable automation solutions using APIs, CI/CD pipelines, and repeatable workflows for testing and troubleshooting
Experience applying AI-assisted techniques to operational workflows such as classification, anomaly detection, or search across telemetry and support data
Familiarity with open-source and network operating systems such as SONiC, IOS-XR, or FBOSS
Solid understanding of networking fundamentals including L2/L3, VXLAN, and security services such as MACsec
Experience with development and collaboration tools including Git, Jira, and CI/CD systems
Proven ability to troubleshoot and perform root cause analysis in large-scale, multi-vendor environments
Experience supporting high-priority or escalated customer issues, with the ability to lead technically during critical situations
Experience with network testing and validation tools such as Ixia, Spirent, or similar platforms

Responsibilities

Serve as a technical focal point for customer solutions, translating real-world constraints into scalable, supportable designs and operational models
Partner closely with engineering teams to troubleshoot and resolve complex issues across datacenter and cloud networking stacks, establishing repeatable diagnostics and clear escalation paths
Support high-priority customers on deep, cross-layer issues, driving problems to root cause with data-backed analysis and clear technical narratives
Apply hyper-scale operational best practices, including telemetry, alerting, and workflow automation, to improve mean time to detect and resolve issues
Develop and maintain Python-based tools to parse, correlate, and visualize operational data, and leverage AI/ML or LLM-based approaches where appropriate for log analysis, triage, and summarization

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.
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.