Control Systems & Embedded Software Technical Leader, Acacia

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

Meet the Team Acacia (part of Cisco) is the industry market leader and pioneer in high-speed coherent optical transceivers and pluggable optical interconnects. Acacia’s revolutionary optical solutions are deployed across all major global hyperscale cloud providers and telecommunications networks, interconnecting data centers across metropolitan spans, thousands of kilometers of terrestrial fiber, and deep submarine links.

With the explosive growth of artificial intelligence and machine learning workloads driving unprecedented bandwidth requirements, Acacia’s high-speed optical transceivers are expanding into next-generation data center fabrics and high-performance compute clusters. In addition to powering deep-space optical communication systems, Acacia is leading the client-side optics market with breakthrough PAM4 DSP architectures, including industry-first 1.6T PAM4 DSP platforms. Joining Acacia’s Software team in Maynard, MA means collaborating with world-class engineers to push the physical and algorithmic boundaries of optical networking.

Your Impact As a Control Systems & Embedded Software Technical Leader, you will be a vital technical specialist responsible for designing and implementing high-speed closed-loop control systems, PID algorithms, and real-time embedded firmware that govern Acacia’s high-performance optical modules and  this hands-on engineering specialist role, you will:

Design, tune, and optimize real-time closed-loop control algorithms (PID, motion control, temperature, and optical power stabilization) operating directly on bare-metal and RTOS microcontroller platforms.

Develop highly efficient, compact embedded C/C++ firmware to configure, monitor, and calibrate hardware subsystems across ARM Cortex-M and Cortex-R cores.

Work closely with Hardware, Optics, and Calibration teams to bring up new boards, characterize feedback loops, and debug electro-optical interactions.

Implement firmware state machines, low-level peripheral drivers, and high-reliability data/control paths.

Own critical firmware features from algorithm simulation to production release, ensuring the highest reliability under demanding and optical conditions.

Minimum Qualifications (Objective Requirements)
Bachelor’s degree in Electrical, Electronics, or Computer Engineering or related field with 8+ years of professional experience.
6+ years in low-level embedded C and C++ programming for physical hardware control.
5+ years development of embedded firmware on bare-metal systems and real-time operating systems (RTOS such as VxWorks, FreeRTOS, ThreadX, or similar).Design, implementation and tuning real-time control systems (e.g., closed-loop feedback, PID control algorithms, or motion/thermal control loops) on embedded microcontrollers (such as ARM Cortex-M or Cortex-R).Ability to work 100% onsite during the initial one-year onboarding period, (with hybrid flexibility available thereafter).

Preferred Qualifications Development of control firmware for optical transceivers, laser controllers, optical amplifiers, or telecommunications hardware.

Expertise with schematic reading, board bring-up, and lab instrumentation (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, optical spectrum analyzers).Development of multithreaded control-plane firmware, interrupt handlers, and complex finite state machines.

Proficiency with version control (Git, Jira, Perforce) and test automation/data analysis scripting (Python, MATLAB).Background in semiconductor devices, hardware startups, sensor integration, or automated test platforms.

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…