Hardware Engineer Hybrid

The application window is expected to close on: 11/29/2026

The Security & Trust Organization (S&TO) has corporate-level responsibility for customer data protection and compliance, corporate information protection, and government and product security. Security is a key concern of our customers and a top investment area for Cisco. Join us and help us become the #1 Trusted IT Company in the World.

Within S&TO, the Foundational Security Technologies (FST) team seeks to increase product security and trustworthiness across a broad range of Cisco products through development, integration and deployment of reusable software and hardware solutions. Within Foundational Security, the Hardware & Firmware Security Team (HFST) focuses on security solutions implemented at the hardware and firmware level.

The HFST seeks an experienced, proactive Hardware Engineer to architect, design, implement, test, and support hardware security features and solutions across Cisco's portfolio. In this role, you will apply your hardware engineering expertise and embedded systems knowledge to tackle sophisticated hardware security challenges.

Responsibilities focus on driving the development and deployment of hardware- and firmware-based security technologies that ensure the trustworthiness of Cisco products.

This is a multifaceted role including leading development and verification activities within the team, serving as an applications engineering specialist and trusted advisor to product teams deploying security technologies, assessing system architectures and hardware components for security capabilities and vulnerabilities, and providing technical guidance and education to increase security awareness.

The successful candidate will need to be comfortable working in an environment with many concurrent activities and be able to prioritize and manage concurrent tasks independently. Since security threats are dynamic and constantly evolving, the role will also require ongoing education to improve security knowledge, investigation of new security threats and technologies to address them, and active evaluation of security solutions.

• Designing, developing, documenting, and testing hardware or combined hardware and firmware-based security technologies on CPU evaluation platforms and Cisco products.
• Assisting internal product teams deploying hardware and software security technologies.
• Educating product teams in their understanding of HW security.
• Developing documentation, proof of concepts, reference code, and scripts to facilitate adoption and verification of security technologies.
• Participating in hardware architecture, design, specifications, and HDL code reviews.

• Education & Experience: B.S. in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related technical field with 5+ years of relevant experience (or M.S. with 3+ years of experience).
• HDL Design & Verification: Prior experience in HDL (FPGA/ASIC) design or verification (e.g. Verilog, VHDL, System Verilog)
• Troubleshooting & Lab Bring-Up: Prior experience with board-level bring-up and debug using hardware debug tools and lab equipment (e.g., oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, JTAG/SWD, and evaluation boards).

• CPU Architectures: Experience with x86 and ARM CPU architectures, boot flow, and bootstrap / firmware execution.
• Scripting & Automation: Scripting language experience for automation using Python or Linux shell scripts.
• Security Architecture: Background in security-related design principles, threat modeling, and secure hardware architecture.
• Cryptography: Experience with Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) standards, algorithms, and encryption techniques, with implementation experience in embedded products.
• Embedded CPU Systems: Prior experience with embedded CPU systems along with hardware debug and test in a lab environment.

Embedded CPU Systems:
Prior experience with embedded CPU systems along with hardware debug and test in a lab environment.

S&TO

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…