Position Title: Technical Leader – SONiC Platform Development
Location: Bangalore, India
Job Type: Professional
Area of Interest: Engineer – Software
Technology Interest: Software Development
Job ID: 1442549
The Cisco Distributed System Engineering (DSE) group is at the forefront of building networking products that power the world’s largest networks. With the industry rapidly transforming to support AI/ML workloads and an ever-growing internet user base, this team focuses on leveraging open-source technologies and pushing the boundaries of system and silicon design. This role offers an opportunity to lead product development by working on open-source platforms like SONiC while collaborating with leading hardware and software experts.
Lead the design, development, and deployment of software solutions that leverage SONiC for interaction with hardware platforms and infrastructure.
Develop and maintain platform adaptation layers to ensure compatibility and seamless integration between SONiC and hardware components such as ASICs, BMCs, and other platform elements.
Work in collaboration with hardware teams to optimize hardware-software integration and expose hardware capabilities through SONiC-defined interfaces.
Write, review, and optimize software modules, including system drivers and APIs that support high-performance data and control planes.
Define and drive technical architecture to integrate SONiC with platform infrastructure, focusing on scalability, performance, and high availability.
Design robust and scalable interfaces for telemetry, diagnostics, and platform security management.
Lead efforts to improve resource utilization, power efficiency, and operational stability of the networking platform.
Provide technical leadership by mentoring junior and mid-level engineers, sharing best practices, and encouraging deep system-level thinking.
Coordinate cross-functional development involving QA, hardware, software integration, and systems teams.
Conduct code reviews, lead architecture discussions, and manage complex technical issues to ensure timely and high-quality deliverables.
Actively engage with the SONiC open-source community, contribute to upstream development, and incorporate community innovations.
Collaborate with product managers and customers to understand real-world requirements, ensuring alignment with use cases and business needs.
Evaluate new technologies, tools, and development methodologies to speed up development and testing lifecycles.
Around 15 years of experience in software development within the networking or telecommunications domain.
Strong background working with Linux-based platforms or network operating systems like SONiC.
Proven experience with platform infrastructure including ASIC drivers, NPUs, BMCs, and network operating system integration.
Hands-on knowledge of virtualization, containers, and orchestration tools such as Docker and Kubernetes.
Experience leading engineering teams or managing complex software projects.
Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and automated test frameworks.
Experience in implementing platform security requirements and compliance standards.
Understanding of telemetry systems and software-defined networking (SDN).
Prior involvement with SONiC development or contributions to the SONiC open-source community.
Working knowledge of SDKs and hardware abstraction layers from vendors like Broadcom, Mellanox, or Marvell.
Cisco offers a dynamic, inclusive culture where innovation, career growth, and hybrid work models are actively supported.
Employees can join Inclusive Communities, Cisco’s internal networks to support diversity, learning, and community engagement.
Each employee receives 80 hours of paid volunteer time per year to contribute to social causes.
U.S.-based employees are offered comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, a 401(k) plan with Cisco matching, disability benefits, and life insurance.
The company provides up to 12 paid holidays, including one floating holiday and a birthday holiday, as well as vacation and sick leave benefits.
Employees in sales roles are eligible for uncapped incentive compensation based on performance against quota and strategic objectives.