Principal Software Engineer

About this role

The application window is expected to close on: 09/29/2026 Job posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or if a sufficient number of applications are received .

Meet the Team The Collaboration organization at Cisco builds platforms and experiences that help engineering teams deliver software safely, consistently, and at enterprise scale. Our developer experience and GitOps platform work sits at the intersection of application engineering, cloud-native delivery, security, and operational excellence.

This team develops the internal tools, services, workflows, and governance patterns that enable engineering groups to release and operate software through a unified, Git-driven model. We work across Java backend services, modern web experiences, Kubernetes and VM-based delivery, GitHub Actions, Argo CD, Vault, and related platform capabilities.

In this role, you will be expected to operate as a strategic technical leader: shaping multi-year platform direction, advising senior leaders, influencing teams across functions, and solving complex problems that affect the direction and performance of the business.

Your Impact This role serves as a strategic leader for developer experience and GitOps within Cisco Collaboration, tasked with aligning platform architecture with critical business, security, and operational goals. You will spearhead enterprise-scale initiatives to modernize the engineering lifecycle, optimizing how teams build, deploy, and secure services across Kubernetes and VM-based environments. By defining robust reference architectures and governance models, you will standardize CI/CD automation, secrets management, and deployment visibility to drive engineering excellence. Beyond technical design, you will act as a key advisor to senior leadership, resolving complex organizational blockers and influencing teams through mentorship and cross-functional decision-making. This position is particularly exciting because it offers the opportunity to build the future of developer efficiency by driving the adoption of AI-assisted workflows and modern delivery models. Ultimately, you will represent the platform strategy to stakeholders, ensuring that these investments deliver measurable business outcomes and improved release velocity.

Minimum Qualifications • Bachelor’s degree with 15+ years of relevant experience, Master’s degree with 12+ years, or PhD with 8+ years of experience in software engineering.

• 10+ years in full-stack development, including backend systems using Java or Spring Boot and frontend interfaces using React, Angular, or Vue.js.

• Production experience crafting and delivering APIs, services, and platform workflows for large-scale enterprise environments.

• Previous enterprise implementation of CI/CD pipelines and Git-based release automation using tools such as GitHub Actions.

• Ownership of architecting and handling containerized, cloud-native applications within Kubernetes and distributed system environments.

Preferred Qualifications • Production experience with GitOps-based delivery using Argo CD or equivalent platforms.

• Experience with HashiCorp Vault or comparable secrets-management technologies.

• Experience with Helm, Kustomize, Terraform, Ansible, or other infrastructure and deployment automation tools.

• Experience supporting both Kubernetes-based and VM-based deployment models at enterprise scale.

• Breadth across platform engineering, developer experience, release engineering, security, observability, and operational readiness.

• Experience defining technical standards, reference architectures, adoption plans, and success metrics for internal developer platforms.

• Ability to anticipate business and industry changes, connect technical strategy to product outcomes, and develop innovative approaches beyond existing solutions.

• Practical experience with AI-assisted development, agentic workflows, or automation patterns that improve engineering productivity while maintaining governance and security standards.

• Strong mentoring presence and demonstrated ability to raise engineering quality across teams through influence, review, and technical guidance.

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 $223,100.00 to $301,100.00 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 insur

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