Principal Hardware Engineer

The application window is expected to close on: 12/01/2026

This role requires the employee to work onsite at the San Jose, CA office location. Up to 10% of local and/or international travel may be required

Meet the Team

The Networking Hardware Engineering (NHE) group creates innovative hardware platforms central to the AI era, powering Cisco’s core Switching, Routing, and Wireless products for organizations globally.

NHE serves as the execution engine for Cisco's most strategic hardware initiatives. We partner across silicon, engineering, product management, operations, supply chain, manufacturing, and executive leadership to transform technology strategy into successful product delivery. Our mission is to provide program leadership, governance, transparency, and execution difficulty across highly complex system development programs, shaping the future of hyperscale infrastructure.

Your Impact

• Define and drive the end-to-end quality strategy for next generation hyperscale switching, routing, wireless access points, AI servers, and optical platforms, from architecture and development through qualification, high-volume production, and customer deployment.
• Lead resolution of complex product quality issues and customer cases, bringing together engineering, manufacturing, operations, and customer teams to identify root causes, contain impact, and deliver timely, lasting corrective actions.
• Serve as a senior technical partner concern point for critical customer issues, including deployment, interoperability, reliability, performance, and system integration challenges across Cisco and third-party products.
• Establish thorough quality and reliability practices across silicon, high-speed SerDes, optics, PCB, power, thermal, mechanical, firmware, diagnostics, and network operating systems.
• Drive system-level failure analysis and risk reviews. Translate field data, customer feedback, and manufacturing findings into preventive actions that improve product robustness and customer experience.
• Lead quality readiness for emerging Ethernet platforms, including pluggable, linear-drive, and near-packaged/co-packaged optical solutions.
• Partner directly with hyperscale customers to understand operational requirements, resolve quality concerns, and build confidence in product readiness, reliability, and serviceability.
• Define and strengthen qualification, validation, diagnostics, and production-monitoring plans to detect issues early and reduce recurrence in deployed systems.
• Influence multi-functional teams and senior leaders on quality priorities, product risk, and corrective-action plans. Mentor engineers and represent Cisco in strategic customer and industry engagements.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering or computer engineering or computer science, with 15+ years of experience; master’s degree with 12+ years in electrical engineering or computer engineering or computer science; or PhD in electrical engineering or computer engineering or computer science with 10+ years of related experience such as networking, switching, optics, or data-center infrastructure.
• Experience leading quality, reliability, systems engineering, or customer issue resolution for complex, high-volume networking, switching, optical, or hyperscale data-center products.
• Experience driving complex technical investigations from customer symptom and data collection through root-cause identification, corrective action, and verification of effectiveness.
• Experience with Ethernet switching and optical communication technologies, including switch ASICs, high-speed SerDes, signal integrity, optical modules, DSPs, link budgets, and system validation.
• Experience leading multi-functional response to critical customer cases, field partner concerns, product defects, or interoperability issues.

Preferred Qualifications

• Strong judgment in assessing product risk and prioritizing actions, with the ability to influence engineering teams, customers, and executive partners.
• Experience with quality and reliability across fixed, modular, chassis-based, or disaggregated switching platforms.
• Knowledge of hyperscale data-center architectures, AI/ML fabrics, scale-out networks, and distributed systems.
• Experience with silicon photonics, coherent optics, linear-drive optics, near-packaged/co-packaged optics, or optical switching.
• Familiarity with SONiC, Linux-based network operating systems, SAI, platform firmware, telemetry, diagnostics, and fleet automation.
• Experience using field, manufacturing, and test data to identify emerging quality trends and drive preventive improvements.
• Contributions to industry standards, patents, or publications, with recognized technical leadership in networking quality or optical systems.

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 $233,900.00 to $330,400.00 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:

$233,900.00 - $380,000.00

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:

$220,900.00 - $344,300.00

* 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.