Lead Software Engineer

CISCO Systems; Greater London; On-site; GBP 39,000 - 79,000; Full time

Job summary

Cisco ThousandEyes is seeking a backend engineer in the UK to design and build scalable services across high-volume streaming and API layers. You will help maintain platform resilience while evolving the architecture to support new product developments and faster delivery cycles.

The role emphasizes strong Java/Kotlin expertise, distributed systems experience, and knowledge of Kubernetes, cloud deployment, and AI tooling.

Qualifications

• Expert-level understanding of Java or Kotlin.
• Extensive experience with distributed systems and Kafka.
• Strong architecture and data/API modeling skills.
• On-the-job experience with agentic AI development.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field preferred.

Responsibilities

• Develop code across backend estate including high-volume streaming and APIs.
• Ensure platform resilience and robustness for a great customer experience.
• Design technical solutions for new product offerings and evolve existing architecture.
• Improve development and operational processes for speed, reliability, and quality.
• Mentor teammates and share knowledge.

Skills

Java

Kotlin

Kafka

Distributed systems

Architecture design

API modeling

Agentic AI

Golang

Kubernetes

Cloud deployment

Datastore tech

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Kubernetes

Job description

Salary: £39,000 - 79,000 per year

Requirements:

• We require expert-level understanding of Java or Kotlin.
• We require wide experience working with distributed systems, especially using Apache Kafka.
• We require strong architecture and design skills, including data and API modeling.
• We require on-the-job experience with agentic AI development, including skills and harness development.
• We prefer a bachelors degree in Computer Science or a similar field.
• We prefer knowledge of Kotlin and Golang.
• We prefer a strong understanding of Kubernetes and modern cloud deployment.
• We prefer exposure to a variety of datastore technologies, covering transactional and analytical, relational and document-based systems.

Responsibilities:

• We create code across our backend estate, touching high-volume streaming, responsive backend-for-frontend APIs, scalable domain services, and transactional and analytical databases.
• We ensure the resilience and robustness of our platform to keep our customers having a great experience.
• We design technical solutions for new product offerings and evolutions of our existing architecture.
• We evolve our development and operational processes so we can keep getting faster, more reliable, and with even higher quality.
• We help our teammates evolve their skills and practice through practical mentoring and knowledge sharing.

Technologies:

• Agentic AI
• AI
• API
• Backend
• Cloud
• Cisco
• Frontend
• Golang
• Java
• Kafka
• Kotlin
• Kubernetes
• Network
• Web
• REST
• Security

More:

We are Cisco ThousandEyes, a Digital Experience Assurance platform that helps organizations deliver flawless digital experiences across every network, even the ones they do not own. Our Connected Devices team helps assure the quality of home broadband connections for millions of people worldwide, and our Platform Team builds and operates the web and server-side components that help customers access, control, and get value from their data. We are a small but well-rounded team working on scaling our architecture, building new features, and partnering with the wider ThousandEyes organization to push the platform forward. Cisco is moving fast on AI across our product and tooling, creating opportunities to bring that forward in Connected Devices too. We offer the chance to work on global-scale products within a collaborative, innovative company with strong growth opportunities.

last updated 36 week of 2026