Senior Data Engineer, Network Platform

Cisco; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 168,000 - 245,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare benefits

401(k) matching

Paid parental leave

Flexible vacation policy

Volunteer days

Job summary

Cisco Systems, Inc. is seeking a data platform engineer to lead reliable batch and streaming data pipelines across structured and unstructured data.

You will define quality, freshness, availability, observability, and cost targets while driving incident response and durable fixes. You will build a machine-readable data context layer and integrate it with catalog/governance systems, enabling AI workflows and bounded human review for production actions.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree and 7+ years of related experience, or equivalent advanced degree.
• 5+ years of SQL with data modeling, transformations and performance tuning.
• 5+ years Python building production data pipelines with tests and maintainable code.
• 3+ years Snowflake production workloads; Postgres a plus.
• Experience with distributed processing and orchestration (Spark, Airflow/Glue) and CI/CD, data quality, observability.

Responsibilities

• Set technical direction for reliable, scalable batch and streaming pipelines.
• Define data quality, freshness, availability, observability, recovery, and cost metrics.
• Lead production incidents and implement lasting fixes.
• Develop a trusted data context layer with definitions, semantics, lineage, and governed access.

Skills

SQL

Data modeling

Python

Production pipelines

Snowflake

Spark

Airflow

CI/CD

Observability

Data quality

Education

Bachelor's degree + 7 years

Master's degree +3 years

PhD +1 year

Tools

Snowflake

Postgres

Airflow

Glue

Spark

Job description

The application window is expected to close on: 01/29/2027

Meet the Team

Cisco is reimagining how IT infrastructure is managed through secure, cloud-managed solutions. The Network Platform Data Science team helps turn Cisco’s rich, multifaceted customer and network data into smarter decisions, improved customer experiences, and faster innovation. You’ll partner across Engineering, Product, Security, UX, Finance, Licensing, and other teams to deliver data platforms and products that are reliable, governed, and ready for AI to use accurately. The environment is at massive scale (10 PB+ across 30+ systems) and blends data engineering rigor with trusted data context—so teams can move from “data exists” to “data is trusted and actionable.”

Your Impact

You will set technical direction for reliable, scalable batch and streaming pipelines and data products across structured and unstructured data. You will define and continuously improve expectations for data quality, freshness, availability, observability, recovery, and cost, then lead production incident investigations to deliver lasting fixes. You will build and evolve a trusted, machine-readable data context layer—covering business definitions, metric semantics, ownership, lineage, quality/freshness, and governed access integrated with existing catalog/governance systems. You will apply AI and agentic workflows to well-scoped data engineering needs (pipeline development, validation, and bug triage), including evaluating results and using bounded permissions with human review for production-changing actions. Success means the organization has a trusted data foundation that scales, is observable and recoverable, reduces “definition drift,” and helps teams—including AI applications—use data accurately and confidently.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree + 7 years of related experience, or Masters 3+ years of related experience, or PHD +1 year of related experience
• 5+ years advanced SQL including data modeling, complex transformations, and query performance tuning.
• 5+ years Python building production data pipelines/services with automated testing and maintainable code.
• 3+ years of Snowflake building, optimizing, and operating production data workloads (Postgres experience is a plus).
• Experience with distributed processing and orchestration (e.g., Spark and Airflow/Glue or equivalent) plus engineering practices across CI/CD, access controls, data quality, observability, incident response, or cost management.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building trusted data context layers (metric semantics, lineage, quality/freshness ownership, governed access) integrated with catalog/governance systems.
• Experience applying AI tools/agents to scoped data engineering work (pipeline validation/bug triage), including evaluating outputs and grounding them in trusted context while managing data access and operational risk.
• Demonstrated ability to influence architecture across teams and communicate trade-offs while mentoring engineers and growing technical capability.

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 $167,700.00 to $245,200.00 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. 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 ofunused sick timecarried forwardfrom one calendar yearto 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:

$167,700.00 - $282,000.00

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:

$149,100.00 - $250,900.00

* 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.