Senior Software Engineer

Our software engineering team develops software using Cisco’s Design Thinking Principles, with simplification and Security at its core. We use secure coding practices, protect user privacy, and follow software development best practices. We are looking for an experienced engineer who enjoys solving complex security problems through automation, scalable software, and strong engineering practices!

We partner closely with Design, Product Management, and other teams to create solutions for our customers. Together, we bring new insights to product innovation and continuously improve how we build software for our customers!

Your Impact

In this role, you will design and develop high-quality software and help bring features from technical design through delivery. You will create technical design documentation for the team and contribute to user documentation for end users.

You will troubleshoot and resolve software issues during development and in production. You will collaborate across teams, share technical knowledge with other engineers, and help improve the quality, scalability, security, and reliability of our software., * Improve the software development lifecycle and advance best practices in agile engineering.

• Lead the design and delivery of high-quality security features that improve our products and services.
• Identify opportunities for products to work together and create greater value for customers.
• Consider market needs, product adoption, and competition when making design decisions and tracking related metrics.
• Review and test code to identify problems and improve scalability, speed, and reliability.
• Develop technical design documentation for the team and contribute to user documentation for end users.
• Resolve errors, monitor production systems, identify risks, and escalate issues when needed. You may also support on-call escalations.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to capture requirements, estimate timelines, track milestones, and deliver projects that meet user requirements.
• Share knowledge across teams through presentations, documentation, blogs, newsletters, and other forums.

• Bachelor’s degree with 5+ years of related experience, Master’s degree with 3+ years of related experience, or PhD with 1+ year of related experience.
• Experience developing production software, including writing clean, functional code and unit tests.
• Experience troubleshooting and resolving software issues in development and production environments.
• Experience with code reviews, testing, and software engineering practices focused on scalability, reliability, and quality.
• Experience creating technical designs and leading software features from design through delivery., * Background leading software projects or features through implementation, testing, and delivery, and preferably experience building security products or developer-facing security tooling.
• Knowledge of production monitoring, incident response, postmortems, and root cause analysis.
• Familiarity with secure software development practices and threat modeling.
• Ability to use AI/ML or generative AI to solve security problems, such as automated threat detection, alert triage, security investigation, anomaly detection, or security workflow automation.
• Familiarity with LLMs, AI agents, embeddings, or other- machine-learning capabilities and their integration with production systems.
• Familiarity with vulnerability analysis, and vulnerability management tools and processes
• Proven collaboration with Product Management, Design, Security, and engineering teams.
• Ability to mentor engineers and share technical knowledge.
• Familiarity with software engineering roadmaps and integrating capabilities across products.

The starting salary range posted for this position is $139,300.00 to $203,600.00 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:

$167,700.00 - $282,000.00

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:

$149,100.00 - $250,900.00

• 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.

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., Cisco will consider for employment, on a case by case basis, qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.