Senior Software Engineer – Control Plane; Go​/Kubernetes - Hypershield

Meet the Team

Join Cisco's Hypershield team, where we are building the next generation of distributed security infrastructure for modern networking environments. Within Hypershield, the Smart Switch team develops foundational security capabilities that extend across multiple Cisco platforms, including switching, routing, and firewall systems. This team is responsible for core control plane software that enables policy configuration, deployment workflows, logging, visibility, and feature orchestration across a shared security architecture used by products spanning Cisco systems networking portfolios, including Nexus, Catalyst, and emerging smart switch platforms.

The work here is highly foundational: features built by this team influence security behavior across multiple Cisco networking products and future infrastructure platforms.

In this role, you will design and develop control plane software for security features used in smart switching platforms and distributed firewall systems. You will contribute to core feature development from design through implementation, with a focus on APIs, policy orchestration, and secure service integration. You will work closely with engineers across control plane, data plane, and platform teams to deliver scalable capabilities that support deployment, observability, and policy enforcement across distributed environments.

What you'll do:

• Design and develop control plane features for network security products using Go in Linux-based environments
• Build and maintain APIs used for policy configuration, deployment workflows, logging, and operational visibility
• Integrate third-party components and internal services into Cisco security platforms
• Collaborate with data plane and platform engineering teams to deliver end-to-end feature functionality
• Contribute to architecture discussions, feature design, and technical execution for new security capabilities
• Ability to collaborate effectively with peers across a geographically distributed team, with regular overlap during Pacific Time (PST/PDT) business hours.

• Bachelor's degree + 8 years of related software engineering experience, or Master's + 6 years of related experience, or PhD + 3 years of related experience.
• 5+ years of development experience in languages such as Go, C, or C++
• Experience developing software in Linux environments
• Experience building or maintaining software for security, networking, or infrastructure products or distributed systems
• Experience developing software for cloud-native applications or services deployed on Kubernetes or similar distributed platforms

• 5+ years of professional Go development experience
• Experience designing and developing APIs using REST, gRPC, or Protocol Buffers
• Experience working with Kubernetes-based applications, including developing, deploying, debugging, or operating software running in Kubernetes environments
• Familiarity with Kubernetes concepts such as CRDs, Kubernetes APIs, controllers, RBAC, or secrets management
• Working knowledge of networking fundamentals, including network flows, policy enforcement, load balancing, or network configuration concepts
• Experience working with distributed systems or network infrastructure platforms
• Familiarity with network configuration technologies such as YANG, NETCONF, telemetry, or similar infrastructure configuration frameworks
• Experience working effectively in a remote or distributed team environment

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 footprint. Fueled by the depth and breadth of our technology, we experiment and create meaningful solutions.

Add to that our worldwide network of doers and experts, and you'll see that the opportunities to grow and build are limitless. We work as a team, collaborating with empathy to make really big things happen on a global scale. Because our solutions are everywhere, our impact is everywhere.

We are Cisco, and our power starts with you.

The starting salary range posted for this position is $ to $ 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.

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