The application window is expected to close on: 07/31/2026

Job posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or if a sufficient number of applications are received.

This is a Hybrid position located in Milpitas, Ca. Ideally 3 days per week in office.

Meet the Team
 

Cisco is building a next-generation DPU-enabled networking platform for secure, high-performance infrastructure and large-scale AI clusters. Our team is responsible for designing the foundational networking, security, and programmable services that span host systems, DPUs, SmartNICs, and cloud-scale control planes. We work at the intersection of systems software, hardware acceleration, distributed security, and AI infrastructure, creating platforms that deliver line-rate performance, strong isolation, operational reliability, and simplified deployment across modern data center environments.

We are looking for a technical leader to define the architecture for host networking, DPU offload, distributed security, and programmable network services across modern DPU and SmartNIC platforms.

Your Impact 

• Lead architecture for DPU-accelerated host networking, security, and network services.
• Define what runs on the DPU versus the host CPU, including tradeoffs around performance, cost, failure isolation, observability, debuggability, and operational complexity.
• Architect distributed firewalling, micro segmentation, virtual routing, service chaining, traffic steering, and line-rate policy enforcement.
• Guide platform decisions across DPU SDKs, programmable pipelines, Linux networking, control-plane services, telemetry, policy distribution, and upgrade models.
• Design APIs, policy models, configuration flows, state synchronization mechanisms, and recovery behavior for distributed networking systems.
• Build static-stability and failure-mode thinking into the architecture so the system behaves predictably during partial failures, control-plane loss, upgrades, rollbacks, and fleet-wide rollout.
• Provide technical leadership for AI cluster networking challenges, including congestion collapse, incast, ECMP imbalance, PFC/ECN behavior, noisy tenants, NIC firmware issues, switch misconfiguration, and GPU underutilization caused by network stalls.
• Align cross-functional stakeholders across hardware, firmware, product, and customer-facing teams to successfully translate complex architectural visions into shippable software.
• Elevate engineering standards across the organization through meticulous design reviews, proactively identifying systemic risks to scale, reliability, and security.
• Mentor senior engineering talent, accelerating team growth and technical depth in packet processing, host networking, and control-plane design.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree with significant related experience, or advanced degree with equivalent experience in networking, systems software, distributed systems, or infrastructure engineering.
• Deep experience designing and building production networking systems, security platforms, cloud networking, host networking, or large-scale infrastructure software.
• Proficiency in systems programming experience using C/C++, Go, Rust, Python, or similar languages.
• Applied skills in Linux networking, packet processing, routing, policy enforcement, virtualization, and production debugging.
• Demonstrated ability to lead architecture across multiple teams and drive complex technical decisions from concept through production.

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on experience with DPU, SmartNIC, NIC offload, NPU, ASIC, or hardware-accelerated networking platforms.
• Experience with NVIDIA BlueField/DOCA, AMD Pensando, DPU SDKs, P4 or P4-like programmable pipelines, DPDK, OVS, tc, eBPF/XDP, SR-IOV, VF/PF, or kernel bypass.
• Experience architecting firewall, microsegmentation, NAT, virtual routing, VTEP, load balancing, traffic steering, service insertion, or service chaining systems.
• Proficient understanding of AI/HPC cluster networking behavior, including RDMA/RoCE, PFC, ECN, ECMP, congestion management, telemetry, and failure diagnosis.
• Experience designing distributed control planes with attention to consistency, state ownership, upgrade safety, rollback, policy convergence, and fleet operations.
• Ability to balance hardware offload, software portability, customer-visible simplicity, performance, and long-term platform maintainability.

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 fearlessly for 40 years to create solutions that power how humans and technolog