System Hardware Board Design Engineering Lead (Onsite)

Cisco Systems, Inc; Milpitas (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Cisco Silicon One in Milpitas, CA is seeking a Lead Hardware Board Design Engineer to define architecture and lead major hardware initiatives for high‑performance networking products. You will collaborate across board design, ASIC, signal integrity, power, software, mechanical, and manufacturing teams to deliver robust innovations.

The role emphasizes technical independence, ownership, and mentorship, with broad influence but no direct reports, guiding projects from concept to production and

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering with 7+ years of related experience.
• Experience with hardware board design and system-level development including high-speed digital design, signal integrity, power integrity, and hardware validation.
• Experience with taking board designs from concept through production including schematic generation, layouts, troubleshooting, and hands-on use of Cadence tools.
• Experience with networking, servers, or high-performance embedded systems, including technologies such as high-speed Ethernet, PCIe, DDR, SerDes, packaging, power conversion, thermal management, EMI/EMC.

Responsibilities

• Define board-level architecture, technology choices, power-delivery strategy, and design direction for complex networking products.
• Lead major hardware initiatives from requirements and architecture through validation, qualification, and manufacturing release.
• Solve signal integrity, power integrity, reliability, thermal, and manufacturing challenges.
• Actively participate in design reviews and cross-functional investigations, and contribute to lab work.
• Guide teams to clear, data-driven decisions and mentor engineers to improve hardware delivery processes.

Skills

Board design

Signal integrity

Power integrity

High-speed digital design

Schematic capture

Lab equipment

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering

Master’s in Electrical Engineering

PhD in Electrical Engineering

Tools

Cadence Concept

Cadence Allegro

Job description

The application window is expected to close on: 01/28/2027

Meet the Team Cisco Silicon One (#CiscoSiliconOne)

is a business organization with a long track record of building complex and high-performance Silicon ASICs. Our silicon devices drive the world’s most complex networks and carry over 90% of IP traffic. 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 all the way through web scale data centers and across service provider, enterprise networks, and data centers with a fully unified routing and switching portfolio. We are a highly specialized ASIC team with experts in all aspects of advanced IC package design and heterogeneous system integration. Our substrates use the latest 2.5D fanout technologies for large-scale integration, using the latest signaling and data transfer technologies. 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 Engineer ing team develops next-generation hardware by adhering to IEEE standards and industry best practices. Our engineer s drive innovation across the full product lifecycle, serving as IP architects, creators, and solution integrators who manage product s from concept to product ion. We design a new class of high-performance router s for the Internet of the future: Cisco 8000 Series router s. These cloud-enhanced systems are power ed by Cisco Silicon One ASIC s and deliver the scale, performance, and efficiency required by critical infra structure.

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 product s.

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 engineer s 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 product s.
• Leading major hardware initiatives from requirements and architecture through validation , qualification, and manufacturing release.
• Solving novel or high-risk signal integrity, power integrity, reliability, thermal , and manufacturing challenges.
• Actively participating in design reviews, architecture discussions, cross- functional technical investigations, and laboratory work.
• Guiding teams to clear, data-driven decisions.
• Mentoring engineer s and improving hardware delivery processes.
• Establishing practical design methods, constraints, verification strategies, and quality improvements.
• Partnering with silicon vendors, PCB fabricators, contract manufacturers, and other suppliers on technical tradeoffs and product execution.
• Communicating technical risks, alternatives, and recommendations to senior stakeholder s.
• Contributing to product -line technology roadmaps.
• Owning the design and validation of a sub-system.
• Ensuring design s meet functional specifications.
• Participating as a valuable team member in cross- functional meetings, specification creation, and technical documentation.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineer ing or Computer Engineer ing and 7+ years of experience, or Master’s in Electrical Engineer ing or Computer Engineer ing and 5+ years of related experience, or PhD in Electrical Engineer ing or Computer Engineer ing and 2+ years of related experience.
• Experience with hardware board design and system-level development, including high- speed digital design , signal integrity, power integrity, and hardware validation using lab equipment such as oscilloscope s, logic analyzers, and spectrum analyzers.
• Experience with taking board design s from concept through product ion, including schematic generation, layouts, trouble shooting, and hands-on use of design tools such as Cadence Concept and Allegro .
• Experience with networking , server, computer , or high-performance embedded systems, including technologies such as high- speed Ethernet , PCIe , DDR , SerDes, advanced packaging, multi-phase power conversion, thermal management, EMI/EMC.
• Experience with leading technical project s or program s, partnering with silicon vendors, fabricators, contract manufacturers, or technology suppliers, and leading multi-site engineer ing teams or cross- functional tiger teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Methodical, analytical approach to problem solving, experience with breaking down complex issues, evaluating evidence, and documenting clear conclusions and next steps.
• Experience with networking product design .
• Experience with co-packaged optics, near-packaged optics, or optical and signal-integrity budget analysis.
• Experience creating test scripts in Python .
• Experience collaborating with cross- functional teams.
• Effective verbal and written communication skills.

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 worldwi