Software Engineering Technical Leader, CX Platform

Role details

The application window is expected to close on: 10/29/2026 This is a Hybrid role located in San Jose CA. Requiring 2-3 days in office per week. Meet the Team The CX Platform is the high-velocity engineering engine powering Cisco’s entire customer experience ecosystem. We build full-stack applications, robust shared services, and cutting-edge AI/ML integrations that empower our customer-facing teams to ship innovation faster and with absolute confidence. As we look toward our FY27 vision, this team is at the epicenter of Cisco’s transformation, ensuring our architecture is not just reactive, but anticipatory. You’ll be joining a group of builders who own the product lifecycle from end to end—from front-end user experiences to complex back-end services. If you thrive in an environment where technical decisions are judged by their measurable impact on customer outcomes, you’ll find your home here. Your Impact In this role, you will define the technical trajectory for a platform that serves as the backbone of Cisco’s most critical customer and business challenges. You will move beyond building features to designing high-performing, scalable systems that define how other engineers develop, deploy, and maintain software across the organization. By bridging the gap between cutting-edge AI/ML research and production-grade software, you will ensure our platform remains secure, cohesive, and ready to meet the evolving demands of our global users. This is an opportunity where your technical authority will be the primary driver for architectural excellence, team mentorship, and the successful delivery of multi-quarter engineering roadmaps. Define Technical Strategy: Lead the architectural vision for the CX Platform, ensuring that AI/ML capabilities are integrated coherently across all services rather than siloed, directly supporting our long-term FY27 scalability goals. Architectural Stewardship: Partner with product and design leadership to translate complex requirements into reliable, high-performing system designs that serve as the foundation for the entire engineering organization. Mentorship: Serve as a technical sounding board and mentor for senior engineers, using your deep code fluency to challenge decisions, conduct rigorous design reviews, and cultivate a culture of engineering excellence through consensus and collaboration. Operational Excellence: Standardize CI/CD practices and security protocols across the stack, ensuring that our development velocity is matched by meticulous quality standards and a seamless developer experience. Minimum Qualifications: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or an equivalent technical degree (e.g., Mathematics, Physics) 8 years of related professional engineering experience (with a Bachelor’s); 6 years (with a Master’s); 3 years (with a PhD). Experience designing and delivering full-stack applications in production environments. Experience integrating AI/ML models or API-driven services into customer-facing products. Experience setting technical standards or architectural requirements for systems used by multiple engineering teams. Experience implementing CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Jenkins, GitHub Actions) and applying secure development lifecycles (e.g., SAST/DAST). Experience leading technical design reviews and influencing architectural decisions through consensus across engineering groups. Preferred Qualifications: Experience leading architecture reviews and driving consensus among senior or principal engineers Experience shaping technical strategy at an organizational level, not just within a single team Experience in one or more of: distributed systems, AI/ML platform integration, secure system design, developer experience/tooling Experience partnering with product and design leadership on multi-quarter roadmaps 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 $186,900.00 to $267,700.00 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, subje