Lead Engineer

The application window is expected to close on: 09/29/2026

This role is hybrid in Virginia, Maryland, District of Columbia, DC Metro Area, Beltway Area.

The successful applicant will be performing work on US Government classified environments, and therefore, must be a U.S. Citizen. This position may also perform work that the U.S. government has specified can only be performed by a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil. 

Meet the Team

Cisco Workspace for Government (W4G) is a Cisco initiative to provide Cisco software products to our most sensitive US Government customers. It is a groundbreaking new approach to providing software products to our US Government customers in an easily consumable platform. The Cisco Workspace for Government Team is in search of an exceptional Lead DevOps Engineer with a real passion for building tools, implementing CI/CD, improving processes, and developing great teams and taking on and solving important problems for both Cisco and our customers. At Cisco, your potential to tackle big problems and build phenomenal products will change the world and make our nation safer.

We value innovation with a passion for our customers and our mission. We adopt creativity and stive for continuous improvement in our product and services. We cultivate a culture of partnership, respect and diversity where every voice is valued. Our team is dedicated to understanding and exceeding our customers' expectations and delivering exceptional value.

The Cisco Workspace for Government Application Infrastructure and Deployment Team is dedicated to enhancing the developer experience and productivity, supporting application CI/CD, and deploying our products to US Government networks. As a cross-product DevOps team, our mission is to assist W4G Developers in their work by eliminating friction, simplifying workflows through increased automation, and offering technical solutions. We enable our development teams to concentrate on delivering products.

Your Impact

Curious and a problem solver. Love to learn and grow and work in an environment that is constantly evolving. A self-starter that thrives with learning information quickly and uses resources to research and resolve issues. Comfortable working with multi-disciplinary, multicultural, and geographically dispersed teams. A technologist at heart and a leader in practice that is:

• Knowledgeable of industry standards and successful strategies
• Proficient with Development Operations
• Aware of software development risks, with an appreciation for what is technically feasible
• Able to maintain a high level of coding, testing, and engineering standards
• Able to be flexible and adaptable if changes in priorities occur
• Confident and preemptive in communicating challenges or opportunities

What You'll Do / The Role

As a Lead Engineer for the Cisco Workspace for Government Application Infrastructure and Deployment Team you will help lead a modest engineering team. You will work alongside the Program Leadership to lead and develop the current team into a high functioning team. Bring innovation and order to complex technical situations. Make core technical contributions to software systems. Collaborate with multi-functional teams outside of the W4G Program to design, implement, and advise on solutions that meet partner and business needs.

• Partner with the Engineering Manager, Software Architect, and Portfolio Owner team to create, deploy, and continuously improve our portfolio of products in development and production environments
• Define, implement, and enforce best practices for the W4G Program
• Refine architectural decisions into designs. Communicate designs to both technical and non-technical partners
• Address technical challenges and refine designs to meet user requirements and implement standard methodologies
• Keep up to date with the latest methods and techniques in industry and collaborate with engineering leaders and engineers

Minimum Qualifications

• 7+ years of professional experience in software engineering, DevOps, cloud infrastructure, or other relevant technical areas.
• Self-starter with a willingness to ask forgiveness, not permission, who has a proven track record of collaborating in agile teams, participating in code reviews, leading technical discussions, and interfacing directly with clients to deliver high-quality features on schedule.
• Proven ability to deploy or migrate production applications to cloud-based Kubernetes environments, ensuring scalability and high availability.
• Understanding of cloud computing platforms and services, particularly AWS.
• Extensive experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC), emphasizing Terraform/OpenTofu.
• Proficiency in one or more programming languages such as Python, Ruby, or Go, with experience in CI/CD pipelines (GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, etc.) and the capability to apply well-established enterprise standards, processes, and procedures to ensure timely and high-quality delivery of engineering projects.
• Strong knowledge of TCP/IP, routing fundamentals, containerization, and orchestration tools such as Docker and Kubernetes.

Preferred Qualifications

• Active U.S. Government Security Clearance.
• Hands-on experience applying and integrating Large Language Models (LLMs) and AI-powered development tools into software engineering workflows. Ability to apply AI to accelerate development, improve code quality, automate routine tasks, enhance troubleshooting, and increase team productivity while maintaining strong engineering judgment and security standards.
• Familiarity with designing, deploying, and scaling applications in the cloud.
• Strong knowledge of software design and deployment principles.
• Experience with microservices architecture and API design.
• Familiarity with databases including both relational and NoSQL databases.
• Proficiency in multiple scripting languages.
• Security knowledge to ensure that systems are designed with security best practices.

S&TO

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 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. 

Message to applicants applying to work in the U.S. and/or Canada:

The starting salary range posted for this position is $149,100.00 to $218,100.00 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.

U.S. employees are offered benefits, subject to Cisco’s plan eligibility rules, which include medical, dental and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution, paid parental leave, short and long-term disability coverage, and basic life insurance. Please see the Cisco careers site to discover more benefits and perks.  Employees may be eligible to receive grants of Cisco restricted stock units, which vest following continued employment with Cisco for defined periods of time.

U.S. employees are eligible for paid time away as described below, subject to Cisco’s policies:

• 10 paid holidays per full calendar year, plus 1 floating holiday for non-exempt employees

• 1 paid day off for employee’s birthday, paid year-end holiday shutdown, and 4 paid days off for personal wellness determined by Cisco

• Non-exempt employees** receive 16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year, accrued at rate of 4.92 hours per pay period for full-time employees

• Exempt employees participate in Cisco’s flexible vacation time off program, which has no defined limit on how much vacation time eligible employees may use (subject to availability and some business limitations)

• 80 hours of sick time off provided on hire date and each January 1st thereafter, and up to 80 hours of unused sick time carried forward from one calendar year to the next

• Additional paid time away may be requested to deal with critical or emergency issues for family members

• Optional 10 paid days per full calendar year to volunteer

For non-sales roles, employees are also eligible to earn annual bonuses subject to Cisco’s policies.

Employees on sales plans earn performance-based incentive pay on top of their base salary, which is split between quota and non-quota components, subject to the applicable Cisco plan. For quota-based incentive pay, Cisco typically pays as follows:

• .75% of incentive target for each 1% of revenue attainment up to 50% of quota;

• 1.5% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 50% and 75%;

• 1% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 75% and 100%; and

• Once performance exceeds 100% attainment, incentive rates are at or above 1% for each 1% of attainment with no cap on incentive compensation.

For non-quota-based sales performance elements such as strategic sales objectives, Cisco may pay 0% up to 125% of target. Cisco sales plans do not have a minimum threshold of performance for sales incentive compensation to be paid.

The applicable full salary ranges for this position, by specific state, are listed below:

New York City Metro Area:

$167,700.00 - $282,000.00

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:

$149,100.00 - $250,900.00

* For quota-based sales roles on Cisco’s sales plan, the ranges provided in this posting include base pay and sales target incentive compensation combined.

** Employees in Illinois, whether exempt or non-exempt, will participate in a unique time off program to meet local requirements.