Principal Tetragon Software Engineer

The application window is expected to close on 07/31/2026. The posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or a sufficient number of applications are received.

Isovalent, now part of Cisco, is the company founded by the creators of Cilium and eBPF. Cisco Isovalent builds open-source software and enterprise solutions solving networking, security, and observability needs for modern cloud native infrastructure. The flagship technologies, Cilium and Tetragon, are the choice of numerous, industry-leading, global organizations.

We believe in fostering an inclusive and diverse workplace where every team member feels valued, respected, and empowered. We encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply and join us in delivering exceptional products and services.

Tetragon is a flexible, Kubernetes-aware observability and security tool that delivers real-time insights and enforcement. Leveraging the power of eBPF, Tetragon provides low-overhead, in-kernel visibility and intelligence across diverse environments.

As a Principal Engineer, you will guide architectural direction while staying deeply engaged in building the systems that power our platform. Your impact will span designing high-performance data pipelines, optimizing database and distributed system performance, and ensuring massive streams of system events can be ingested, aggregated, and distilled into meaningful intelligence.

You will collaborate closely with teams across Cisco, including Hypershield and Splunk, to create integration points that transform raw data into actionable insights for enterprise security.

• Develop high-quality Go (and eBPF) code for the Tetragon project.
• Extend Tetragon capabilities to mitigate security vulnerabilities. Examples include: ...
• Enhance Tetragon to better understand and control the execution flow of native (e.g., written in C/C++) or runtime-based (Java, Python, Go, etc.) applications.
• Enhance Tetragon capabilities to filter malicious network packets that can trigger vulnerabilities in applications / systems.
• Enhance Tetragon, and potentially the kernel and the eBPF subsystem, to mitigate against kernel-level vulnerabilities.
• Design and optimize systems to deploy and manage Tetragon across large fleets, in K8s or other environments (VMs).
• Architect infrastructure that converts raw event data into intelligence streams with minimal performance overhead.
• Partner across teams to align requirements, define integration points, and deliver production-ready solutions.
• Contribute to open-source projects and represent Cisco Isovalent in community discussions.
• Participate in architecture reviews, code reviews, and documentation.

• Bachelors + 15 years of related experience, or Masters + 12 years of related experience, or PhD + 8 years of related experience or equivalent experience.
• 10+ years of experience in systems programming (C, C++, Go, Rust, or similar; Tetragon is primarily written in Go).
• Proven experience leading technical direction or architecture for runtime security systems, observability, or simulator.
• Experience in OS-level development, distributed systems, or database systems.
• Experience in debugging and performance optimization with a track record of delivering scalable systems.

• Experience building eBPF-based systems for observability or security use cases.
• Solid background in Linux systems and kernel-level concepts.
• Familiarity with Kubernetes and cloud-native environments.
• Familiarity with CVE workflows, vulnerability data pipelines, or security event modeling.
• Familiarity with how vulnerable software is exploited at all levels.
• Strong experience in networking protocol analysis or developing networking switches (e.g., L2/L3 protocols like ARP, DHCP, SNMP).
• Contributions to open-source projects in networking, observability, or distributed systems.
• Experience working across diverse, distributed teams.

Starting salary range for this position is $ to $ (U.S. and/or Canada locations), reflecting the projected salary range for new hires in this position, not including incentive compensation, equity, or benefits. Individual pay…