Senior Software Engineer, Cisco Intersight

020 Cisco Systems, Inc.; Milpitas (CA); On-site; USD 168,000 - 245,000; Full time

Job summary

Cisco Systems, Inc. is seeking a Senior Software Engineer for the Intersight team to design and deliver cloud-native backend services supporting AI infrastructure. You will own features end-to-end across distributed systems and cloud platforms, shaping architecture and improving reliability.

You will mentor peers, collaborate with product and UX, and drive security and scalable solutions for on-prem and cloud environments with a strong focus on performance and customer value.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or higher with strong software engineering background.
• Experience with Go, C/C++, Java, or Python and API design.
• Experience building cloud-native microservices and distributed systems.
• Ability to lead complex features end-to-end with focus on scalability and reliability.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, test, and maintain backend services for the Intersight cloud platform.
• Lead features from design through production with API and service integrations.
• Diagnose production issues, participate in incident response, root-cause analyses.
• Collaborate with product, UX, and other teams to balance value and performance.
• Mentor engineers and contribute to security and reliability practices.

Skills

Go

C/C++

Java

Python

Distributed Systems

Cloud-native

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master's degree

PhD

Tools

AWS

MongoDB

Job description

Meet the Team

The Cisco Intersight team is at the forefront of Cisco’s AI Infrastructure strategy. Intersight provides cloud-native management and orchestration capabilities for distributed compute infrastructure, helping organizations provision, monitor, and optimize the systems that support traditional and AI workloads across data centers and edge locations. Our high-performing, collaborative engineering team builds and owns the cloud-native software behind Intersight. We solve complex challenges across backend services, APIs, distributed systems, data platforms, and AI-enabled capabilities, with a strong focus on scalability, reliability, and customer experience. We value technical excellence and innovation, and every engineer is empowered to influence the product’s architecture and the future of infrastructure management.

Your Impact

As a Senior Software Engineer on the Cisco Intersight team, you will design and deliver cloud-native software that supports Cisco’s AI Infrastructure strategy. You will apply deep expertise in distributed systems, cloud platforms, and data-intensive backend services to build secure, scalable, and reliable solutions for cloud and on-premises environments. You will independently lead features from technical design through production delivery while collaborating with product management, user experience, and other engineering teams. You will help shape architecture and technical direction, improve engineering practices, mentor other engineers, and drive innovations that advance the Intersight platform and create meaningful value for customers.

• Design, build, test, and maintain secure, scalable backend services for the Intersight cloud platform using clean, maintainable code and comprehensive unit and integration tests.


• Independently lead medium-sized features from technical design through production, delivering APIs, distributed services, and platform integrations while documenting key architectural decisions and risks.


• Diagnose complex production issues, participate in incident response, and lead root‑cause analyses and corrective actions.


• Partner with product management, user experience, and other engineering teams to deliver solutions that balance customer value, usability, performance, and operational impact.


• Design and develop AI-enabled and agentic capabilities using technologies such as retrieval‑augmented generation, large language models, and MCP‑based integrations.


• Review code and technical designs for correctness, security, scalability, reliability, and maintainability.


• Coordinate cross‑team dependencies, estimates, milestones, risks, and delivery plans while contributing to the engineering roadmap.


• Mentor peers and junior engineers through technical guidance, design discussions, code reviews, documentation, and knowledge sharing.


• Contribute to threat modeling and incorporate security, privacy, and secure coding practices throughout the development lifecycle.


• Improve engineering processes, automation, testing, developer productivity, and system reliability.

Minimum Qualifications

Bachelors degree + 7 years of related experience, or Masters + 4 years of related experience, or PhD + 1 year of related experience, or equivalent related work experience. Significant experience designing and developing production software using one or more languages such as Go, C/C++, Java, or Python. Experience designing, deploying, and operating cloud-native microservices and large-scale distributed systems on at least one major public-cloud platform. Strong knowledge of data structures, algorithms, software architecture, and API design. Demonstrated experience independently leading technically complex software features from design through production, including addressing scalability, performance, and reliability.

Preferred Qualifications

AWS Cloud experience preferred. Experience developing enterprise management platforms for compute or AI infrastructure. Deep expertise designing and scaling MongoDB-backed systems, including data modeling, indexing, query optimization, replication, sharding, performance analysis, and production troubleshooting.

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.

• 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 January1st 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.

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.

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.