Software Engineering Technical Leader - Wireless

Lead Firmware Engineer

Cisco Meraki's Wireless team develops and maintains the world's leading cloud-managed WLAN Access Point ecosystem, serving millions of active devices across the globe. Our mission is to simplify technology so customers can focus on what matters most—their students, patients, customers, and businesses. The MR firmware team is a collaborative group of highly experienced software engineers with diverse technical backgrounds, working on everything from leading-edge wireless protocols to architectural innovations and customer-impacting optimizations.

We're passionate about delivering wireless solutions that simply work, and we're excited to tackle the next generation of performance and capability challenges in 802.11 standards and beyond.

As a Lead Firmware Engineer on the Wireless Performance team, you will drive the evaluation and optimization of performance on MR Access Point devices, directly impacting millions of customers worldwide. Solve functional and performance-related regressions in our Access Point firmware while actively developing features aligned with emerging 802.11 and networking standards, ensuring we maintain both innovation and legacy compatibility. Design and implement next-level data plane optimizations by evaluating existing components, identifying performance bottlenecks, and collaborating across teams to deliver novel solutions.

Develop comprehensive tests and processes to proactively triage and resolve performance and functional issues, working with the team to establish processes that elevate product quality. Lead small-to-medium features from technical design through completion, advocating for customer-centric improvements and articulating design choices grounded in market awareness and competitive positioning.

• Bachelor's degree in computer science or a related field with 8+ years of total software engineering experience or Master's with 6+ years of total software engineering experience
• 6+ years of professional software engineering experience in production environments using C or C++ programming
• Prior experience with Wi-Fi drivers and firmware, including direct collaboration with Wi-Fi vendors to triage, open, and resolve technical issues
• Experience working in Linux and/or embedded systems environments with knowledge of TCP/IP and UDP protocols
• Applied experience with 802.11 wireless standards and core network protocols (DNS, DHCP, VLANs), including analyzing Wireshark packet captures for debugging and root cause analysis

• Deep understanding of system performance optimizations including system/traffic profiling and performance-oriented data structure and algorithm development
• Hands-on experience with performance testing tools such as iperf, Ixia Traffic Generators (Ixia Chariot, iGen), and equivalent platforms
• Experience with hardware and software acceleration paradigms including DPDK, VPP, multi-threading, or similar technologies
• Proficiency with Yocto build systems and embedded Linux development
• AI-first development mindset with demonstrated experience using modern AI-assisted development tools such as Git Hub Copilot, Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, or Codex

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