Full-Time
Senior Software Engineer
C/C++ with Firmware & Networking
Cisco
10,001+ employees
Networking hardware, security software, collaboration services
No salary listed
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
In Person
Bachelor's, Master's
 Software Engineering (1) |
|---|
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- A Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Communication Engineering, or a related field, with typically 8-12 years of relevant software or firmware development experience.
- Strong hands-on proficiency in C/C++ with solid data structures, algorithms, object-oriented design, memory management, and debugging skills.
- Hands-on experience developing firmware, embedded software, or system software for networking products.
- Strong system design skills with the ability to design and independently own feature- or component-level architecture.
- Strong experience with concurrent programming, multithreading, synchronization, and interprocess communication or remote procedure call mechanisms.
- Strong Layer 2 and Layer 3 networking knowledge, including Ethernet, VLANs, STP/RSTP, LACP/LAG, ARP, IPv4/IPv6, routing fundamentals, packet flow, and network troubleshooting.
- Strong Linux and system programming fundamentals and hands-on debugging experience using GDB, core dumps, packet captures, Wireshark or tcpdump, and traffic generators or analyzers such as IXIA or equivalent.
- Demonstrated ownership of medium-to-large technical features, including design, implementation, testing, rollout, and production or customer support.
- Ability to mentor engineers and contribute effectively to design and code reviews.
- Hands-on experience using generative artificial intelligence-assisted development tools such as Codex, GitHub Copilot, Claude, or equivalent while maintaining code quality and security.
- Design, develop, and own networking components that are simple, scalable, reliable, and supportable.
- Develop firmware and system software for Cisco switching products.
- Analyze requirements and problem statements, evaluate technical trade-offs, and produce clear software designs, detailed design documents, and functional specifications.
- Write high-quality C/C++ code and unit tests.
- Apply white-box testing and automation practices.
- Triage, debug, and determine the root cause of software bring-up issues, regressions, crashes, performance problems, and customer failures.
- Work with local and remote teams to review product requirements, software functional and design specifications, unit and integration test plans, and validation strategy.
- Partner with system test and quality teams to ensure feature readiness.
- Contribute ideas that improve product architecture, debuggability, performance, reliability, and engineering productivity, including opportunities to create intellectual property.
- Hands-on development and debugging experience with networking protocols and switching features such as VLAN, STP/RSTP/MST, LACP/LAG, UDLD, Storm Control, QoS, OSPF, BGP, ECMP, multicast, DHCP relay, SLAAC, or VRRP.
- Experience with Python or another scripting language for test automation, debugging, tooling, or developer productivity.
- Experience with hardware/software bring-up, SDK/ASIC interaction, packet processing, or high-performance data-plane software.
- Cisco networking certifications such as CCNA, CCNP, or CCIE.
Cisco designs and sells networking hardware, software, and services that help organizations connect, protect, and manage data. Its products include networking gear, security solutions, cloud services, and collaboration tools like Webex to support hybrid work. Cisco differentiates itself with a broad, integrated stack—routing and switching, security, cloud, and collaboration—that works together at scale. Its goal is to help customers securely connect people, devices, and applications, enabling reliable communication and digital transformation across enterprises of all sizes.
Company Size
10,001+
Company Stage
IPO
Headquarters
San Jose, California
Founded
1984
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Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Fiscal 2026 AI infrastructure orders reached $9.3 billion, with $4 billion in Q4.
- Cisco guided fiscal 2027 revenue to $72.2–$73.4 billion and AI revenue to $7.5 billion.
- AMD, Cisco, and HUMAIN launched Saudi AI infrastructure, targeting 1 gigawatt by 2030.
What critics are saying
- June 2026 Cisco SD-WAN zero-days exposed root access, proving its attack surface stays exploitable.
- May 2026 layoffs cut nearly 4,000 jobs, signaling restructuring pain and execution strain.
- Arista and Nvidia commoditize Cisco’s AI networking, leaving it a low-margin box supplier.
What makes Cisco unique
- Cisco’s Silicon One and NX-OS/Sonic stack anchor its NCP-compliant Secure AI Factory.
- August 25, 2026 Supermicro deal adds rack-to-fabric liquid cooling across networking and compute.
- Cisco still sells the control plane enterprises trust for security, observability, and hybrid operations.
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Benefits
Paid Vacation
Hybrid Work Options
Flexible Work Hours
Professional Development Budget
Growth & Insights and Company News
6 month growth
↑ 0%1 year growth
↑ 0%2 year growth
↑ 0%Cisco has secured $9.3 billion in hyperscale AI orders for fiscal year 2026, positioning itself as a key player in AI infrastructure. The company's fourth-quarter networking product orders grew 40%, marking the eighth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. Revenue reached $17.3 billion in Q4, up 17.6%, whilst non-GAAP earnings per share of $1.22 beat estimates by 4.4%. Management projects AI infrastructure revenue of $7.5 billion in fiscal 2027. CEO Chuck Robbins cited "accelerating adoption of agentic AI" as driving a networking super cycle. Four major hyperscalers increased AI infrastructure orders in Q4. Cisco trades at a 21x forward price-to-earnings ratio, significantly below competitor Arista Networks' 70x trailing P/E. However, non-GAAP gross margin fell to 66.3% from 68.4% year-over-year due to product mix shifts towards high-volume AI hardware.
AMD announced a partnership with Cisco and Saudi Arabia's HUMAIN to launch an AI infrastructure platform in the kingdom. The collaboration combines AMD's Instinct MI355X GPUs and EPYC CPUs with Cisco's Silicon One networking architecture to deliver GPU-as-a-Service infrastructure. The platform will begin with 250 megawatts of AI deployment starting in 2027, scaling to 1 gigawatt by the decade's end. This gives AMD access to sovereign AI spending outside North America. AMD's data centre sales grew 107% in Q2. The company's stock is currently trading at more than twice its price from the start of this year. The partnership positions AMD to compete with Nvidia in regional cloud computing whilst diversifying revenue streams beyond US cloud providers.
Cisco has expanded its AI infrastructure partnership with Nvidia, incorporating liquid cooling technology into its Secure AI Factory. The move, in collaboration with Super Micro Computer, includes high-density liquid- and air-cooled GPU systems supporting Nvidia's next-generation Vera Rubin NVL72 and HGX Rubin NVL8 platforms. The shift reflects broader industry trends. Market research firm TrendForce forecasts liquid cooling penetration among AI chips will rise from 33% in 2025 to 53% in 2026, reaching 60% in 2027. The rapid adoption stems from increasingly power-hungry processors from Nvidia, AMD, and Google, whose thermal requirements exceed traditional air-cooling capabilities. Cisco emphasised that power and cooling now dictate where AI infrastructure can be built, with heat management emerging as a critical engineering challenge.
Cisco is partnering with Supermicro to add high-powered AI servers to its Nvidia-backed infrastructure offering. The systems will support Nvidia's next-generation platforms and are expected to become available in October. Cisco will sell the compute alongside its networking, security and observability products as a pre-validated system designed to make massive GPU clusters easier to deploy. The expansion pushes Cisco deeper into the AI infrastructure market. "Think about us as being the critical infrastructure for the AI era," Cisco President and Chief Product Officer Jeetu Patel said. The company is betting that as long as demand for AI infrastructure continues, it can supply equipment regardless of where AI ultimately runs. Cisco's stock is up nearly 45% year-to-date, as investors increasingly view the company as a beneficiary of the physical AI buildout.
Cisco has expanded its Secure AI Factory architecture through a partnership with Supermicro, adding rack-scale AI computing solutions to its portfolio. The collaboration delivers end-to-end infrastructure for massive AI workloads, from trillion-parameter training models to edge inferencing. The full-stack architecture addresses growing neocloud and sovereign cloud demand with an NVIDIA Cloud Partner-compliant solution featuring Cisco AI networking systems. Customers gain access to Supermicro's liquid- and air-cooled systems, enabling easier management of high-density AI clusters alongside non-AI workloads. The expanded offering includes rack-to-fabric liquid cooling with Cisco liquid-cooled AI networking systems and Supermicro's liquid-cooled servers. Cisco is the only NVIDIA technology partner using its own networking switches and operating system in an NCP-compliant solution. Cisco will begin offering Supermicro compute solutions as part of the Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA in October 2026.