Leader - Software Development Optical-Embedded, OpticalSystems, Linux, DWDMtransmission, hyperscalers, People Manager - Exp -12-17 Yrs

Meet the Team
Join Cisco Networking Engineering (CNE), formerly Distributed Systems Engineering (DSE), a multi-billion-dollar business driving innovation in Web, Service Provider Edge, Core, and Optical markets. Our India-based team is responsible for the development of high-end routers like ASR9000, NCS5500, NCS540, NCS560, NCS5700, and critical optical products such as NCS1010, NCS1014, NCS1004, NCS4000, and NCS2000 series. We are a high-performing team, having delivered two Pioneer (now Pinnacle) Award products at Cisco, and we offer exciting career opportunities for enthusiastic and experienced software professionals.

Your Impact
As AI infrastructure scales exponentially, you will play a critical role in redesigning our optical systems to address the growing challenges of cost, power, and rack space. Your work will directly contribute to simplifying and designing cost-efficient optical solutions that support this rapid growth. You will lead a team through the complete product development lifecycle, from initial design to successful deployment, making a tangible impact on the future of AI infrastructure innovation at Cisco.

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor a team of engineers, fostering a culture of innovation and excellence.
• Architect flex-grid long-haul line systems, considering transmission characteristics of fiber and line system elements, including signal power/OSNR evolution and fiber nonlinearities.
• Collaborate on the architecture, design, and validation of distributed, link-level optical line system control systems in close cooperation with software development and test teams.
• Work in a co-development model with key hyperscalers to design future systems.
• Work closely with the test team to validate and simplify solutions.
• Create comprehensive documentation to ensure use cases are clear.
• Drive the overall strategy and vision for your team's contributions to the AI infrastructure space.

Minimum Qualifications

• Proven leadership experience in managing and developing high-performance engineering teams.
• Strong background in embedded development using C/C++/Python.
• Experience in developing control loops for hyperscalers.
• Hands-on experience with DWDM transmission systems, including coherent transponders, EDFAs, Raman amplifiers, and ROADMs.
• Strong documentation skills to ensure use cases are clear.

Preferred Qualifications

• Excellent communication skills and the ability to collaborate effectively across teams.
• Experience with test-driven development.
• Demonstrated ability to innovate and deliver cutting-edge solutions.
• Passion for leading the next wave of AI infrastructure innovation.
• Experience with complete product development from design to deployment.

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.