Software Engineering Technical Leader

The application window is expected to close on: 11/09/2026

Meet the Team

The Routing Engineering team for the Cisco 8000 platform focuses on developing high-performance software solutions for cloud-scale infrastructure within the IOS-XR environment.

We specialize in architectural optimization, ensuring robust packet forwarding and reliable system operations across modular hardware platforms. Our team bridges the gap between complex routing protocols and data plane performance to meet the rigorous demands of modern service providers and hyperscale networks.

Impact

Develops 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 best practices. 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.

What You’ll Do:

• Uses specialized expertise to interpret business issues, recommend best practices, and solve complex problems. Mentors others, leads small-to-medium features, and manages projects that span multiple teams.

• Writes clean, functional code that sets team standards. Influences architectural decisions (security, scalability, reliability) and articulates design choices based on market awareness and competitive analysis.

• Advocates for and innovates new features and products to address unmet customer needs. Influences and tracks metrics to measure success.

• Provides expertise in the SDLC and agile strategies. Scopes work accurately, provides reliable project estimates, and negotiates delivery trade-offs with cross-functional partners.

• Contributes to product threat modeling and proactively resolves risks in production. Designs robust monitoring tools to increase performance.

• Leads postmortems and root cause analyses. Facilitates team knowledge sharing (e.g., brownbags, demos) and contributes to the wider professional community through blogs or publications.

• Serves as an expert on multiple functional components.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelors + 8 years of related experience, or Masters + 6 years of related experience, or PhD + 3 years of related experience.

• Experience in all phases of SW development cycle with exposure to agile development methodologies

• Experience with tech stack C/ C++ or Python

• Experience with networking protocols

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiarity with Linux and modern software tools and techniques for development/debugging and validated software design and development skills

• Experience with Service provider, data center technologies and architectures

• Knowledge of VMs and virtualization technologies

• Development experience in L2/ L3 Forwarding

Why Cisco?

At Cisco, we’re revolutionizing how data and infrastructure connect and protect organizations in the AI era – and beyond. We’ve been innovating fearlessly for 40 years to create solutions that power how humans and technology work together across the physical and digital worlds. These solutions provide customers with unparalleled security, visibility, and insights across the entire digital footprint.

Fueled by the depth and breadth of our technology, we experiment and create meaningful solutions. Add to that our worldwide network of doers and experts, and you’ll see that the opportunities to grow and build are limitless. We work as a team, collaborating with empathy to make really big things happen on a global scale. Because our solutions are everywhere, our impact is everywhere.

We are Cisco, and our power starts with you.

Message to applicants applying to work in the U.S. and/or Canada:

The starting salary range posted for this position is $186,900.00 to $267,700.00 and reflects the projected salary range for new hires in this position in U.S. and/or Canada locations, not including incentive compensation*, equity, or benefits.

Individual pay is determined by the candidate's hiring location, market conditions, job-related skillset, experience, qualifications, education, certifications, and/or training. The full salary range for certain locations is listed below. For locations not listed below, the recruiter can share more details about compensation for the role in your location during the hiring process.

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. Please see the Cisco careers site to discover more benefits and perks. Employees may be eligible to receive grants of Cisco restricted stock units, which vest following continued employment with Cisco for defined periods of time.

U.S. employees are eligible for paid time away as described below, subject to Cisco’s policies:

• 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.

Employees on sales plans earn performance-based incentive pay on top of their base salary, which is split between quota and non-quota components, subject to the applicable Cisco plan. For quota-based incentive pay, Cisco typically pays as follows:

• .75% of incentive target for each 1% of revenue attainment up to 50% of quota;

• 1.5% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 50% and 75%;

• 1% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 75% and 100%; and

• Once performance exceeds 100% attainment, incentive rates are at or above 1% for each 1% of attainment with no cap on incentive compensation.

For non-quota-based sales performance elements such as strategic sales objectives, Cisco may pay 0% up to 125% of target. Cisco sales plans do not have a minimum threshold of performance for sales incentive compensation to be paid.

The applicable full salary ranges for this position, by specific state, are listed below:

New York City Metro Area:

$186,900.00 - $307,800.00

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:

$166,300.00 - $274,100.00

* For quota-based sales roles on Cisco’s sales plan, the ranges provided in this posting include base pay and sales target incentive compensation combined.

** Employees in Illinois, whether exempt or non-exempt, will participate in a unique time off program to meet local requirements.