Software Engineering Technical Leader

Cisco • Milpitas, MI

2d • Remote

About The Position

The Datacenter Switching team at Cisco is at the core of AI Networking. We are responsible for designing and developing the next generation of high-performance networking solutions for massive-scale cloud and AI environments. Our work focuses on the Cisco Nexus 9000 Series (Nexus 9K) switches, which serve as the foundational building blocks for modern data center architectures. Nexus 9K switches are critical in modern data centers for providing the high-density, low-latency, and power-efficient performance required for leaf-and-spine fabrics. We focus on building and optimizing Cisco’s architecture to meet the demands of modern data center workloads and automated cloud environments. The team drives innovation in GPU-Connectivity with architectures to support high-compute clusters. Our scope includes the development of diverse fabric technologies, such as Pure L3, VXLAN, and SRv6 fabrics. Engineers on this team solve complex challenges in programmability, scalability, and telemetry at the core of the global internet infrastructure.

Requirements

• Bachelors + 8 years of related experience, or Masters + 6 years of related experience, or PhD + 3 years of related experience.
• Experience with Datacenter Switches and Networking.
• Experience in dealing with customer escalations, solving issues, on L2/L3 technologies, NXOS infrastructure.

Nice To Haves

• L2/L3/VXLAN forwarding, AI-Networking - Customer Support/Escalation handling experience, with scripting/development knowledge in networking.
• Comfortable with using AI tools such as Copilot and Cursor.
• Proven ability to design and maintain scalable infrastructure automation using Python.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to bridge technical and non-technical stakeholders to drive project alignment.

Responsibilities

• Developing software consistent with Cisco ‘Design Thinking Principles’ with a focus on simplification and UX (User Experience) at its core, using secure coding practices, ensuring user privacy, and following software development procedures.
• Partners with other teams, including design and product management to create the right solution for the customers.
• Creates technical design documentation to be used by the team as well as contributing to user documentation to be used by end users.
• Debugs and addresses software issues during development and in production systems to support customers.
• Brings new ideas for product innovation and helps improve software development processes.
• Uses specialized expertise in one or more areas to interpret internal or external business issues and recommends standard processes.
• Solves complex problems and takes abroad perspective to identify innovative solutions.
• May lead small-to-medium features from technical design through completion.
• May lead projects that span multiple teams; manages workload and workstreams holistically.
• Influences a defined software engineering roadmap.
• May lead medium-to-large features from technical design through completion.
• Guides in the development and implementation of the software development lifecycle, and agile engineering strategies across applicable teams and partners.
• Leads and mentors others, and improves the technical design of solutions.
• Advocates for new features within a product to address customer needs.
• Articulates design choices based on an expert understanding of market awareness, product adoption, and competition.
• Innovates new products to address unmet customer needs.
• Influences and tracks metrics to measure success.
• Writes functional clean code and unit tests at a level that sets the standard for coding across teams.
• Influences architectural decisions with a focus on security, scalability and reliability.
• Contributes to threat modeling of a product.
• Proactively identifies, prioritizes, and resolves risk and issues in production systems.
• Designs and implements robust monitoring tools that provide visibility and reliability and acts on the data and alerts to increase future performance.
• Leads postmortems and reviews root cause analysis, ensures on call coverage.
• Expert on multiple functional components.
• May contribute to knowledge sharing among the wider professional community with technical blogs or publications.
• Scopes work accurately and provides reliable estimates for project milestones and completion.
• Communicates delivery trade-offs and negotiates with multi-functional partners to align on direction and outcomes.
• Mentors peers or others on the team.
• Facilitates/encourages knowledge sharing in the team (e.g., brownbags, demos, design sessions).

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
• grants of Cisco restricted stock units
• 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
• 16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year, accrued at rate of 4.92 hours per pay period for full-time employees (non-exempt)
• flexible vacation time off program (exempt)
• 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
• annual bonuses
• performance-based incentive pay

What This Job Offers

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