The application window is expected to close on: 08/28/2026
Job posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or if a sufficient number of applications are received.
This position is a hybrid role, requiring the employee to work both onsite and remotely. Candidates should be comfortable with a flexible work arrangement that balances in-office collaboration and remote work. Specific onsite days and remote days will be coordinated with the team and manager.
Your Impact- Lead, coach, and develop a team of software engineers, fostering an inclusive, high-performing engineering culture!
- Drive execution of strategic initiatives across Indexing Platform priorities.
- Partner with architects and TPMs to translate technical strategy into execution plans and deliver complex, multi-quarter initiatives.
- Establish priorities, remove execution blockers, and balance feature delivery with platform investments, technical debt, and operational excellence.
- Recruit, mentor, and retain engineering talent while supporting career growth and technical development.
- Partner with technical leaders on architecture reviews, system design, and engineering planning for large-scale distributed systems.
- Guide engineering decisions to ensure solutions are scalable, reliable, maintainable, and operationally efficient.
- Drive engineering excellence through design reviews, code quality, testing, CI/CD, observability, and production readiness.
- Lead operational excellence through incident response, post-incident reviews, and continuous reliability improvements.
- Collaborate closely with Infrastructure, Data Management, Search, Operation, Product, and customer-facing teams to deliver cross-functional platform initiatives.
Minimum Qualifications:- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
- 8+ years of software engineering experience building distributed systems, including previous engineering management experience.
- Demonstrated success leading software engineering teams delivering complex infrastructure or platform services.
- Strong understanding of distributed systems, cloud-native architectures, and modern software engineering practices.
- Proven ability to drive execution across multiple concurrent initiatives while partnering with senior technical leaders and cross-functional stakeholders.
Preferred Qualifications:- Experience leading backend infrastructure, platform, or distributed systems engineering teams.
- Experience partnering with Principal or Staff Engineers to execute long-term technical roadmaps.
- Strong technical background in distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, and backend services.
- Experience with Golang, C++, Java, or Python.
- Experience with AWS, Azure, and/or Google Cloud Platform.
- Familiarity with Kubernetes, Terraform, PostgreSQL, CI/CD, observability, and infrastructure automation.
- Experience operating highly available production services and driving operational excellence.
- Excellent communication, collaboration, stakeholder management, and coaching skills.
- Passion for building high-performing teams and developing engineers.
Message to applicants applying to work in the U.S. and/or Canada:The starting salary range posted for this position is $163,600.00 to $234,600.00 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 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:
$183,800.00 - $303,100.00
Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:
$163,600.00 - $269,800.00
* 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.
