Software Engineering Technical Leader, Backend Data Engineer

Please note this posting is to advertise potential job opportunities. This exact role may not be open today but could open in the near future. When you apply, a Cisco representative may contact you directly if a relevant position opens.

Meet the Team

The SaaS Engineering organization within the Cisco Networking Group is committed to revolutionizing the deployment of generative AI applications. Our mission is to improve IT visibility and deliver comprehensive analytics for the AI infrastructure stack. By using ground-breaking technologies, we are developing next-generation SaaS-based controllers designed to efficiently manage Data Centers with AI/ML solutions like Nexus Hyperfabric. https://www.cisco.com/site/us/en/products/networking/data-center-networking/nexus-hyperfabric/hyperfabric-ai/index.html

Your Impact

You will shape the Hyperfabric data strategy and execute it. You will build and maintain in-product dashboards, APIs, and 3rd party system integrations, all while handling high-volume streaming data such as device telemetry, system alerts, etc. You are committed to designing and building robust and scalable systems that are easy to understand and maintain. Your contributions will directly impact how our customers interact with Hyperfabric by giving them visibility into their data centers’ performance, health, and more.

You will innovate at the intersection of data + AI. You will define and deploy our strategy to collect and stage our telemetry data. Leveraging this, you will build the AI workloads that transform this data into meaningful insights that we surface to our customers, including error detection, troubleshooting, performance tuning suggestions, etc.

Responsibilities:

• Design and build forward-looking, performant, well-tested software with a specific focus on Go and Python. As a backend data engineer, you will focus on supporting both internal and external use cases.

• Design and build data pipelines that support Hyperfabric’s data APIs and notification streams, leveraging Druid, Kafka and more. Benchmark and tune these pipelines to support our workloads at high throughput and low latency and with fault tolerance.

• Deploy new functionality into production with rollout/rollback planning as well as monitoring and alerting.

• Collaborate with product managers, other software engineers, and QA through all stages of the software development lifecycle.

• Contribute to the team through technical design reviews, code reviews, and mentoring.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s + 12 years of experience or Master’s + 8 years of experience in software engineering or related field, with a focus on building cloud systems, including expertise in database, data lake and streaming systems.

• Experience building scalable data pipelines using Spark, Flink, or similar technology.

• Experience programming with two or more languages such as Go, Python, Bash, Java, C, C++.

• Experience with AI-based code tools such as Codex, Claude Code, etc

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience deploying or using Data Lakes/Warehouses, including storage, table format, and processing.

• Experience building and deploying AI-backed functionality, either customer-facing features or internal productivity tools.

• Expertise with Druid or another time-series analytics database.

• Expertise with Kafka or another streaming system

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:

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:

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:

* 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.