Senior​/Lead Software Engineer; Packet Forwarding Engines

Senior/Lead Software Engineer (Packet Forwarding Engines)

Arista Networks is an industry leader in data‑driven, client‑to‑cloud networking for large data center, campus and routing environments. What sets us apart is our relentless pursuit of innovation. We leverage the latest advancements in cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and software‑defined networking to provide our clients with a competitive edge in an increasingly interconnected world. Our solutions are designed to not only meet the current demands of the digital landscape but to also anticipate and adapt to future challenges.

At Arista we value the diversity of thought and perspectives that each employee brings to the table. We believe that fostering an inclusive environment, where individuals from various backgrounds and experiences feel welcome, is essential for driving creativity and innovation.

Our commitment to excellence has earned us several prestigious awards, such as Best Engineering Team, Best Company for Diversity, Compensation, and Work‑Life Balance. At Arista, we take pride in our track record of success and strive to maintain the highest standards of quality and performance in everything we do.

Arista Networks is looking for world‑class software engineers to join our Packet Forwarding Engines (PFE) and System software development team. As a core member of the PFE software and System software team, you will be part of a fast‑paced, high caliber team building packet forwarding engine and system software to manage the world’s most complex networking ASICs used to build the industry's largest data center networks.

Your software will be a key component of Arista's Extensible Operating System (EOS), Arista's unique, Linux‑based network operating system that runs on all of Arista's data center networking products.

The Packet Forwarding Engines and System software team is responsible for all aspects of the development and delivery of our ASIC‑based forwarding engine software. You will work with your fellow engineers to understand functional and technical requirements for upcoming projects. You will write functional specifications, design specifications, test plans, and the code to bring all of these to life. You will also work with customers to triage and fix problems in their networks.

Internally, you will develop automated tests for your software, monitor the execution of those tests, and triage and fix problems found by your tests. At Arista, you will own your projects from definition to deployment, and you will be responsible for the quality of everything you deliver.

This role demands strong software engineering fundamentals, and a good understanding of ASIC‑based packet forwarding engines, hardware components (like temperature sensors, fan controllers, etc), board system management software, how the software that manages them is implemented, and the networks in which they are used. Your role will not be limited to any single aspect of managing ASIC‑based packet forwarding engines at Arista, but cover all aspects of bringing up new hardware, developing all features requiring hardware forwarding support (including low‑level hardware drivers), testing the software and hardware, and supporting our customers using the products you build.

• Write functional specifications and design specifications for small‑sized packet forwarding engine features and system software to manage hardware components.
• Independently implement solutions to small‑sized problems in our packet forwarding engine software and system software using the C, C++, and python programming languages.
• Understand, utilize, test, and debug packet forwarding engine and hardware components vendor‑provided software libraries in your solutions.
• Write test plan specifications for small‑sized packet forwarding engine features and system software, and implement automated test programs to execute the cases described in the test plan.
• Debug problems found by our automated test programs and fix the problems.
• Work on a team implementing, testing, and debugging solutions to larger packet forwarding engine software…