Software Quality Engineer, Secure Firewall

Cisco•Austin, MD

4d•$138,100 - $198,200

About The Position

Cisco’s Network Security System and Integration Test (SIT) and System Test (ST) teams ensure the quality, reliability, and scalability of Secure Firewall solutions. The Software Quality Engineer independently owns assigned test areas and validates complex, end-to-end customer workflows across physical, virtual, and cloud environments. The role combines hands-on system testing, automation, network-security expertise, and defect investigation to identify integration and regression risks before release. The engineer collaborates with software development, platform, automation, product, and release teams throughout the development lifecycle. The position is open to candidates in Fulton, Maryland, or Austin, Texas.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree and 5 years of experience in software quality engineering, system testing, network engineering, or a related discipline.
Experience designing test scenarios, selecting appropriate methodologies, and configuring required test environments.
Experience using Python or a comparable scripting language for test automation and tooling.
Linux or Unix administration and troubleshooting skills.
Experience leveraging generative AI assistants across the software development lifecycle to accelerate coding, automate testing, and streamline work item management.

Nice To Haves

Experience testing network-security products such as firewalls, intrusion prevention or detection systems, secure gateways, or comparable security platforms.
Strong knowledge of TCP/IP and network troubleshooting.
Practical experience with Layer 2 and Layer 3 networking; LANs, link aggregation, and interface configurations; static and dynamic routing, including OSPF and BGP; IPv4 and IPv6; NAT and access-control policies; site-to-site and remote-access VPN technologies; and high availability, failover, clustering, or redundant systems.
Experience using packet-analysis and diagnostic tools such as Wireshark, tcpdump, system logs, debuggers, or equivalent utilities.
Strong written and verbal communication skills and ability to collaborate effectively across geographically distributed teams.
Ability to investigate complex failures across multiple interacting components and communicate findings clearly.
Experience with Cisco Secure Firewall, including FTD, FMC, ASA, FXOS, Snort, or related technologies.
Experience with Python test frameworks such as pyATS, pytest, or comparable automation platforms.
Familiarity with REST APIs, Git-based development workflows, CI/CD pipelines, and automated test execution systems.
Experience validating upgrades, rollback, backward compatibility, configuration migration, and long-running production-like workloads.
Experience with performance, scale, stress, soak, resiliency, or fault-injection testing.
Familiarity with virtualization and cloud platforms such as VMware, KVM, AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.
Experience with traffic-generation, protocol-simulation, or network-performance tools.
Knowledge of security threats, traffic inspection, identity integration, telemetry, logging, and observability.
Cisco networking or security certification, such as CCNP Enterprise or CCNP Security.

Responsibilities

Develop and execute risk-based test plans for Cisco Secure Firewall products and their management, data-plane, platform, and ecosystem integrations.
Validate end-to-end workflows involving firewall management, threat inspection, routing, switching, NAT, VPN, identity, logging, policy deployment, and related security capabilities.
Test standalone, high-availability, clustered, multi-instance, virtualized, and cloud-based deployment topologies.
Perform feature integration, system, regression, upgrade, rollback, backward-compatibility, resiliency, recovery, scale, stress, and longevity testing.
Design, implement, maintain, and troubleshoot automated tests using Python-based frameworks and supporting tools.
Build, configure, and maintain representative test environments with network devices, security appliances, traffic generators, virtual machines, and cloud resources.
Reproduce, isolate, and characterize complex software and system failures using packet captures, logs, traces, core files, system metrics, and diagnostic tools.
Document defects with reproduction procedures, technical evidence, business impact, and severity justification.
Participate in feature handoffs, technical reviews, test-plan reviews, defect triage, and cross-functional quality reviews.
Use AI-assisted engineering and testing tools where appropriate to accelerate test design, failure analysis, and automation development, while validating outputs and protecting confidential information.

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
Potential eligibility for Cisco restricted stock unit grants, subject to continued employment and vesting conditions
10 paid holidays per full calendar year, plus one floating holiday for non-exempt employees
Paid birthday day off, paid year-end holiday shutdown, and four paid personal wellness days
Non-exempt employees receive 16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year, accrued at 4.92 hours per pay period for full-time employees
Exempt employees participate in a flexible vacation time-off program with no defined usage limit, subject to availability and business limitations
80 hours of sick time off provided on hire and each January 1, with up to 80 unused hours carried forward
Additional paid time away may be requested for critical or emergency family issues
Optional 10 paid volunteer days per full calendar year
Eligibility for annual bonuses for non-sales roles, subject to Cisco policies