Hardware Engineering Technical Leader

Cisco Systems, Inc.; Milpitas (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Cisco Systems, Inc. is seeking a Lead Hardware Board Design Engineer to drive architecture and design for high‑performance networking platforms.

You will guide cross‑disciplinary teams and own critical decisions from concept to production, leveraging Cisco Silicon One technologies to meet demanding customer needs. The role emphasizes independent technical leadership, robust problem solving, and responsibility for end‑to‑end hardware initiatives across development, qualification, and

Responsibilities

• Defining board-level architecture, technology choices, power-delivery strategy, and design direction for complex networking products.
• Leading major hardware initiatives from requirements and architecture through validation, qualification, and manufacturing release.
• Solving novel or high-risk signal integrity, power integrity, reliability challenges across disciplines.

Skills

Hardware design

Board design

Signal integrity

Power integrity

Architecture leadership

Job description

The application window is expected to close on: 12/03/2026

Meet the Team

The Common Hardware Group (CHG) creates innovative hardware platforms central to the AI era, powering Cisco's core Switching, Routing, and Wireless product s for organizations globally. Our innovations in silicon, optics, and hardware platforms-like Silicon One-are shaping the technology industry. We're a global team of creative experts, bringing our unique backgrounds and bold ideas to push boundaries and help each other grow. Because full product development-from design to qualification to production-is within our team, we're able to think differently, experiment more, and work quickly. Join us to power the future of the digital world.

Cisco Silicon One is the only unifying silicon architecture in the market that enables customers to deploy the best-of-breed silicon from Top of Rack (TOR) switches through web-scale data centers and across service providers, enterprise networks, and data centers with a fully unified routing and switching portfolio. Come join us and take part in shaping Cisco's ground-breaking solutions by designing, developing, and testing some of the most complex ASICs being developed in the industry.

The Cisco Service Provider Routing Hardware Engineering team develops next-generation hardware by adhering to IEEE standards and industry best practices. Our engineers drive innovation across the full product lifecycle, serving as IP architects, creators, and solution integrators who manage products from concept to production.

We design a new class of high-performance routers for the Internet of the future: Cisco 8000 Series routers. These cloud-enhanced systems are powered by Cisco Silicon One ASICs and deliver the scale, performance, and efficiency required by critical infrastructure. You will collaborate with board design, ASIC, signal integrity, power, software, mechanical, thermal, manufacturing, systems, and supplier teams to define, design, validate, and release high-performance networking products.

Your Impact

As a Lead Hardware Board Design Engineer, you will be a recognized technical leader for a product. You will apply deep hardware expertise to define architecture, lead complex product initiatives, resolve difficult technical issues, and guide engineers across disciplines. This is an individual contributor role with broad technical influence; it does not require people management but demands technical independence, sound judgment, visible ownership, and leadership across teams. As a Lead Hardware Board Design Engineer, you will be responsible for:

• Defining board-level architecture, technology choices, power-delivery strategy, and design direction for complex networking products.
• Leading major hardware initiatives from requirements and architecture through validation, qualification, and manufacturing release.
• Solving novel or high-risk signal integrity, power integrity, reliability