Software Engineering Technical Leader - Customer Experience / SDK - L2/L3, MPLS

The application window is expected to close on: 12/30/2026

Job posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or if a sufficient number of applications are received.
 Meet the Team

• Cisco Silicon One™ is Cisco’s progressive silicon architecture powering the next generation of web-scale, cloud, service provider, enterprise, and AI networking infrastructure. The Silicon One Software Customer Engineering team works closely with Silicon One architecture, SDK, platform software, and Network Operating System (NOS) teams, as well as strategic customers and ecosystem partners, to enable, integrate, optimize, support, and deploy Silicon One software solutions across a broad range of networking environments.
• Our team serves as a critical bridge between silicon development, software engineering, and real-world deployments, helping accelerate feature adoption, optimize system performance, resolve complex customer challenges, and ensure successful integration of Silicon One technologies in production networks ranging from hyperscale cloud environments to large-scale AI/ML infrastructure.
• We are seeking an experienced Software Engineering Technical Leader to help drive software integration, feature enablement, performance optimization, customer support, and customer adoption of Silicon One solutions across Cisco and open-source networking ecosystems.

• Your Impact
• As a Software Engineering Technical Leader, you will provide technical leadership for key software integration, deployment, and customer enablement initiatives while working closely with architects, senior technical leaders, engineering teams, strategic customers, and ecosystem partners.

• You will:
• Lead the design, development, integration, and optimization of Silicon One software solutions across Cisco and open-source Network Operating Systems.
• Drive feature enablement through Switch Abstraction Interface (SAI) and other networking software frameworks.
• Collaborate with Silicon One architecture, SDK, platform software, and NOS teams to deliver scalable, high-performance networking solutions.
• Develop and optimize software features supporting modern cloud, data center, and AI/ML networking deployments.
• Lead software integration efforts involving Quality of Service (QoS), traffic management, congestion management, and load-balancing technologies.
• Contribute to the development and deployment of networking solutions for large-scale AI/ML clusters and GPU-based infrastructures.
• Work closely with customers and internal engineering teams to analyze deployment requirements, optimize performance, and accelerate feature adoption.
• Partner with customers, ecosystem partners, and internal engineering teams to fix, analyze, and resolve complex software and networking issues in development, qualification, and production environments.
• Provide technical leadership during customer critical issues involving Silicon One software, SDK, SAI, and Network Operating System integrations.
• Drive root-cause analysis, issue triage, and resolution of customer-reported software defects, integration issues, and performance challenges by coordinating across architecture, SDK, platform software, and NOS teams.
• Analyze field issues, identify product improvement opportunities, and provide actionable feedback to engineering teams to improve software quality, reliability, and deployment readiness.
• Support customer enablement activities including solution validation, deployment planning, performance tuning, and feature adoption.
• Participate in architecture discussions, design reviews, and technical planning activities with architects and senior technical leaders.
• Mentor engineers, conduct code reviews, and promote engineering excellence and guidelines.
• Contribute to automation, validation, testing, and continuous integration frameworks to improve software quality and deployment efficiency.

• Minimum Qualifications
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related technical field with 10+ years of software development experience; OR
• Master’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related technical field with 8+ years of software development experience.
• Strong software development expertise in C++ and Python.
• Experience developing software on Linux-based systems.
• Experience developing, integrating, or debugging networking software using SDKs and abstraction layers.
• Experience with Switch Abstraction Interface (SAI) or similar networking abstraction frameworks.
• Strong understanding of Layer 2 and Layer 3 networking technologies and protocols.
• Experience with Network Operating Systems and software integration across networking platforms.
• Strong understanding of Quality of Service (QoS), traffic management, congestion management, and load-balancing technologies.
• Hands-on experience with software debugging, performance analysis, and fixing in complex networking environments.
• Experience fixing and resolving complex networking software issues in development, test, or production environments.
• Experience working with networking ASICs, switching platforms, or network infrastructure software.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience developing or integrating networking SDKs for switching, routing, or programmable networking silicon.
• Experience with Cisco and open-source Network Operating Systems, including SONiC or similar platforms.
• Deep understanding of data center networking architectures and large-scale distributed systems.
• Experience with Priority Flow Control (PFC), Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN), lossless Ethernet, congestion management technologies, and traffic engineering.
• Knowledge of Adaptive Routing and Switching (ARS), dynamic load balancing, ECMP/UCMP, and advanced traffic distribution techniques.
• Experience with AI/ML networking infrastructure, GPU cluster networking, RoCEv2, RDMA, and high-performance data center fabrics.
• Experience optimizing networking performance, scalability, and reliability in hyperscale cloud or AI environments.
• Familiarity with Silicon One architecture, SDKs, and software ecosystem.
• Experience with Linux kernel interfaces, device drivers, and low-level hardware programming.
• Experience developing automation, diagnostics, validation, and test infrastructure using Python.
• Experience supporting customers, partners, or field engineering organizations in diagnosing and resolving software and networking issues.
• Experience managing technical customer concerns and coordinating issue resolution across multiple engineering teams.
• Experience with deployment, validation, and operational support of networking solutions in cloud, data center, or AI infrastructure environments.
• Strong understanding of switch/router architectures and high-performance networking systems.
• Proven ability to lead complex technical initiatives and collaborate effectively across multiple engineering organizations.
• Excellent communication, collaboration, partner management, customer engagement, and mentoring skills.

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.

Disclaimer

To ensure that we hire the best talent in the right way, we follow a strict hiring process and recently, Cisco has