Engineering Manager – Test Engineering (Routing & SD-WAN) |12+ years

Cisco; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 3,500,000 - 6,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Cisco Bengaluru is seeking an Engineering Manager – Test Engineering to lead a high-performing team responsible for quality across Routing and SD‑WAN platforms. You will define the test strategy, drive automation initiatives, and establish practices that improve software quality throughout the development lifecycle.

You will partner with development, product, and release teams to shift quality left, strengthen automation, and ensure release readiness for complex networking products.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of experience in software quality engineering or test engineering, including experience leading engineering teams.
• Proven experience managing and mentoring high-performing software test or quality engineering organizations.
• Deep understanding of Layer 2/Layer 3 networking, including routing, switching, TCP/IP, VPNs, overlays, tunneling, QoS, security, and high availability.
• Strong hands-on expertise with routing protocols such as BGP, OSPF, IS-IS, multicast, or related technologies.
• Experience validating Routing, SD-WAN, enterprise networking, edge platforms, cloud connectivity, or network orchestration solutions.
• Strong automation experience using Python, Robot Framework, PyTest, Go, or similar technologies.
• Experience designing and scaling automation frameworks, CI/CD-integrated testing, lab automation, and test infrastructure.
• Strong analytical and debugging skills across distributed systems, control plane, data plane, and management plane architectures.
• Excellent leadership, communication, stakeholder management, and project planning skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor a team of software test engineers focused on Routing and SD-WAN platforms.
• Define comprehensive test strategies covering functional, scale, performance, resiliency, interoperability, upgrade, and regression testing.
• Drive the development of automation frameworks, reusable test libraries, and CI/CD-integrated testing pipelines.
• Improve engineering efficiency through lab automation, topology orchestration, simulation, and infrastructure optimization.
• Establish quality metrics, automation coverage goals, defect trends, and release readiness criteria.
• Validate complex networking technologies across routing protocols, SD-WAN control and data planes, high availability, security, and cloud connectivity.
• Collaborate with cross-functional engineering leaders to manage technical priorities, customer escalations, and release execution.
• Build a culture of continuous quality improvement, technical excellence, and engineering ownership.

Skills

Leadership

Python

Robot Framework

PyTest

Go

CI/CD

Lab automation

Debugging

Distributed systems

Tools

Kubernetes

Containers

CI/CD pipelines

Lab automation tools

Job description

Meet the Team

Cisco Routing & SD-WAN Engineering is responsible for building industry-leading networking solutions that power enterprise, service provider, and cloud connectivity worldwide. Our Quality Engineering team ensures every release meets the highest standards of reliability, scalability, and performance through automation-first testing and continuous quality practices. We work closely with software development, product management, customer support, and release engineering teams to deliver resilient networking platforms that our customers trust.

Your Impact

As an Engineering Manager – Test Engineering, you will lead a high-performing team responsible for quality engineering across Cisco's Routing and SD-WAN platforms. You will define the overall test strategy, drive automation initiatives, and establish engineering practices that improve software quality throughout the development lifecycle.

You will partner closely with development, product management, and release teams to shift quality left, strengthen automation, and ensure release readiness for complex networking products. Your leadership will directly influence the reliability, scalability, and customer experience of Cisco's networking portfolio.

In This Role, You Will

• Lead and mentor a team of software test engineers focused on Routing and SD-WAN platforms.
• Define comprehensive test strategies covering functional, scale, performance, resiliency, interoperability, upgrade, and regression testing.
• Drive the development of automation frameworks, reusable test libraries, and CI/CD-integrated testing pipelines.
• Improve engineering efficiency through lab automation, topology orchestration, simulation, and infrastructure optimization.
• Establish quality metrics, automation coverage goals, defect trends, and release readiness criteria.
• Validate complex networking technologies across routing protocols, SD-WAN control and data planes, high availability, security, and cloud connectivity.
• Collaborate with cross-functional engineering leaders to manage technical priorities, customer escalations, and release execution.
• Build a culture of continuous quality improvement, technical excellence, and engineering ownership.

Minimum Qualifications

• 12+ years of experience in software quality engineering or test engineering, including experience leading engineering teams.
• Proven experience managing and mentoring high-performing software test or quality engineering organizations.
• Deep understanding of Layer 2/Layer 3 networking, including routing, switching, TCP/IP, VPNs, overlays, tunneling, QoS, security, and high availability.
• Strong hands-on expertise with routing protocols such as BGP, OSPF, IS-IS, multicast, or related technologies.
• Experience validating Routing, SD-WAN, enterprise networking, edge platforms, cloud connectivity, or network orchestration solutions.
• Strong automation experience using Python, Robot Framework, PyTest, Go, or similar technologies.
• Experience designing and scaling automation frameworks, CI/CD-integrated testing, lab automation, and test infrastructure.
• Strong analytical and debugging skills across distributed systems, control plane, data plane, and management plane architectures.
• Excellent leadership, communication, stakeholder management, and project planning skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Cisco networking technologies including IOS-XE, Catalyst, Meraki, Viptela, Routing, or SD-WAN platforms.
• Familiarity with cloud-native technologies including Kubernetes, containers, virtualization, and AWS, Azure, or GCP networking services.
• Experience with traffic generators, packet analysis, telemetry, observability platforms, and performance benchmarking tools.
• Strong understanding of DevOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, and automation-first quality engineering methodologies.
• Experience improving release quality through measurable engineering metrics, automation coverage, and continuous quality initiatives.
• Demonstrated success leading globally distributed engineering teams and driving cross-functional collaboration.

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.