Senior Staff Engineer, Agentic Identity Architect

020 Cisco Systems, Inc.; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 214,000 - 310,000; Full time

Job summary

Cisco Systems, Inc. in San Francisco seeks a Technical Leader to define and build core identity capabilities for AI agents across cloud, on-prem, and hybrid architectures.

You will drive architecture from concept to production, delivering scalable security-focused software that empowers non-human callers and autonomous agents. Lead cross-functional teams with Security, AI Platform, Product and Cloud Operations; build reusable APIs, SDKs, and MCP-based access; mentor engineers and set engineering

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or higher with 12+ years software engineering experience, or Master’s with 8+ years.
• 10+ years of distributed systems, backend services, or security platforms in production.
• 5+ years implementing enterprise identity/auth protocols (OAuth 2.0/2.1, OIDC, SAML, SCIM, LDAP, SPIFFE, or mTLS).
• 4+ years containerization (Docker, containerd, Kubernetes) and at least one major cloud (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
• 3+ years security engineering principles, including threat modeling, attack-path analysis, or security architecture reviews.

Responsibilities

• Define and build core identity capabilities across cloud, on-prem, and hybrid architectures.
• Lead strategy from concept through production deployment for enterprise identity solutions.
• Translate identity and access challenges into scalable enterprise-grade software.
• Deliver developer tooling and APIs, SDKs, CLI tools, and MCP-based access patterns.
• Drive cross-functional alignment with Security, AI Platform, Product, and Cloud Ops.
• Set architectural direction, conduct design and code reviews, and mentor engineers.
• Deliver production MVPs and prototype solutions for security problems.

Skills

Distributed systems design

Backend services

Security platforms

Identity protocols

Containerization (Docker/Kubernetes)

Cloud platforms (AWS/Azure/GCP)

Threat modeling & security reviews

Go/C/C++/Java development

Linux server-side development

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/CE/EE or related field

Master’s degree (optional)

Tools

Docker

containerd

Kubernetes

Job description

Cisco Systems, Inc. in San Francisco seeks a Technical Leader to define and build core identity capabilities for AI agents across cloud, on-prem, and hybrid architectures.

You will drive architecture from concept to production, delivering scalable security-focused software that empowers non-human callers and autonomous agents. Lead cross-functional teams with Security, AI Platform, Product and Cloud Operations; build reusable APIs, SDKs, and MCP-based access; mentor engineers and set engineering