AI Observability Engineering Technical Leader

020 Cisco Systems, Inc.; Milpitas (CA); On-site; USD 257,000 - 333,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental and vision insurance

401(k) plan with company matching

Paid time off and holidays

Job summary

The Platform and Security team at Cisco Systems, Inc. builds and operates the observability infrastructure powering Cisco's AI software and cloud offerings.

You will shape the observability platform vision, instrument critical services, and drive standardized health signals across teams. You’ll own OpenTelemetry enablement for Go and Python, push logging best practices, and operate the telemetry pipelines (Splunk Platform/Observability, OTEL collectors) to deliver rapid, actionable health

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering (or related field) with 8+ years in platform services or DevOps, or a Master’s with 8+ years, or PhD with 5+ years.
• Experience with distributed tracing concepts and instrumentation strategies.
• Proficiency coding in Python and/or Go for observability tooling.

Responsibilities

• Define the observability platform vision and execute end‑to‑end with software teams to instrument services correctly.
• Deliver 100% coverage of distributed tracing in collaboration with development teams.
• Own OpenTelemetry enablement for Go and Python apps and design patterns to accelerate adoption.
• Operate Splunk Platform/Observability pipelines and OTEL collectors to maintain reliability at scale.

Skills

Distributed tracing

Python

Go

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering or related field

Tools

Splunk Cloud

Splunk Observability

OpenTelemetry (OTEL)

Kubernetes

Terraform

Helm charts

Job description

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

Meet the Team

The Platform and Security team within Cisco's AI Software and Platform Group designs and operates the infrastructure that powers Cisco's AI powered offerings, including Cisco Cloud Control, AI Defense, and AI Canvas. Within this team, the Observability Engineering group provides the metrics, traces, and logs needed to keep these services observable and ensure the most important workflows are continuously monitored. You’ll partner across the AI Software and Platform group to set observability standards, deliver platform solutions, and raise the bar for what "great" looks like in production reliability.

What’s exciting:

You’ll help build an agentic observability outcome where health insights can be surfaced faster and more intelligently than traditional dashboards and alerts.

Your Impact

You will define the observability platform vision and execute it end-to-end by partnering with software teams to instrument services correctly and consistently. You will deliver 100% coverage of distributed tracing in collaboration with development teams, ensuring tracing is implemented optimally with the right balance rather than tracing "everything." You will own and evolve OpenTelemetry enablement—including libraries, process documents, and design patterns that accelerate adoption in Go and Python applications. You will drive observability best practices across logging standards and cardinality management, then operate the platform components (Splunk Platform/Splunk Observability, OTEL collectors, and telemetry pipelines) to keep them dependable at scale. You will advance an agentic observability outcome so agents can analyze observability health signals and deliver distilled, actionable information more rapidly than conventional monitoring.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering (or related field) +12 years working in a platform services or DevOps role, with specific ownership of observability, or Masters + 8 years of related experience, or PHD + 5 years of related experience 2+ years of experience in Splunk Cloud and Splunk Observability (or SignalFx): experience using Splunk Cloud for logging and Splunk Observability for metrics and traces.
• Experience with distributed tracing concepts and implementation, including instrumentation approaches and strategies for managing scope and overhead.
• Experience coding in Python and/or Go, including building libraries, automation, or operational tooling that supports observability platforms.
• Experience with distributed systems infrastructure, including Kubernetes, OpenTelemetry (OTEL) collectors, and infrastructure-as-code (e.g., Terraform), plus familiarity with Helm charts and modern SDLC practices (e.g., GitHub workflows).

Preferred Qualifications

Experience driving large-scale (100+ microservices) distributed tracing initiatives across an organization. Experience using AI agents to continually refine observability outcomes (e.g., detecting issues, improving routing/alerts, recommending instrumentation changes). Understanding of LLM observability, including familiarity with major providers and patterns for measuring reliability, latency, and quality signals. Deep understanding of AWS services commonly used in telemetry pipelines and distributed architectures.

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:

The starting salary range posted for this position is $256,900.00 to $333,400.00 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.

Benefits and Compensation

• 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.
• New York City Metro Area: $256,900.00 - $383,500.00
• Non-Metro New York state & Washington state: $234,400.00 - $341,100.00 * 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.

Cisconians power the future. We make impact as a team, innovating fast and fearlessly to create meaningful solutions on a large scale. The depth and breadth of our technology doesn't just benefit our customers – it also means limitless opportunities for us to experiment and learn. We understand the power each of our unique backgrounds bring when we work together. Because of that, we have a global network of thinkers, doers, experts, and curious creators who help one another do their life's best work.