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 + 12 years of related experience, or Masters + 7 years of related experience, or PhD + 3 years of related experience.
• 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 hyperscale 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

What This Job Offers

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