Failure Analysis Technical Leader (Hybrid)

The application window is expected to close on: 07/31/2026

Job posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or if a sufficient number of applications are received.

This position is a hybrid position with approximately 2 days in office.

Meet the Team

We are Cisco's Failure Analysis & Prevention team, which plays a critical role in ensuring high Customer/Product quality. The Technology and Quality organization is responsible for delivering customer-focused quality, reliability solutions and infrastructure for Cisco products. It is committed to driving a competitive advantage for Cisco by ensuring innovation and excellence in manufacturing technology, test, and component engineering, NPI, and closed-loop quality management.

Your Impact

You are a problem solver and looking for continuous product improvement. You love to learn, grow, and work in a constantly evolving environment. You are a self-starter who thrives with learning information quickly and uses resources to research and resolve issues.

• Failure Analysis Technical Lead will drive the improvements in the accuracy of the fault duplication and isolation.
• Provide direction and techniques on customer issues.
• Engage Design engineering and communicate findings and resolutions for HW and SW field issues.
• Coordinate the Failure Analysis cases review meeting with Cisco teams and suppliers.
• Defect-detection including containment analysis.
• Work closely with a multi-functional team of Product Leads, Technical Leads and Customer Support to accelerate replicate customer reported issues.
• Articulate key technical issues to customers, sense issues early, identify impact and partner to drive resolution.
• Ensure EMS partners deliver timely and accurate results in duplicating, isolating root cause of customer issues.
• Drive innovation, new technology/processes.
• Organize, plan, track and close-out design, components, and manufacturing issues associated with the products.
• Evolving the Product debug document over the Product Life Cycle.
• Responsible for communication on key issues along with quality group to design engineering, accounts and escalation teams.
• Proactive engagement with customer facing teams on reducing RMA, rightsizing FA, and getting more debug and troubleshooting information from Field.
• Collaborate with PQE/CEs and drive Corrective/ Preventive action. Design Issue, MFG Issue, Process, supplier issue.
• Participate in initiatives to enhance existing test strategies, methodologies and test/diagnostic coverage for field returns to aim for improvements in the accuracy of the fault duplication and isolation.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in electrical or computer engineering with 8+ years of related experience.
• Experience with High-Speed Network Interfaces along with previous hands-on board design expertise and familiarity with board design tools such as Cadence Allegro or similar tools.
• Hardware design, schematics generation, and design validation for service provide routing products.
• Experience with sophisticated high speed board design and board bring-up.
• Knowledge of Cisco products.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s degree in electrical or computer engineering.
• Experience with high-speed SERDES (>=25G) system design, signal integrity issues, and power distribution techniques
• Ability to collaborate with eCAD, FPGA, Power, Mechanical, Signal integrity, and Manufacturing teams.
• Familiarity with leading-edge CPUs such as Intel or AMD, analog and networking components such as PCIe switches, PHY, retimers, voltage regulators.
• Experience in unit test methodologies and agile working environment along with sophisticated CPU design and bring-up is a plus

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 $159,800.00 to $202,300.00 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:

$159,800.00 - $232,600.00

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:

$141,700.00 - $206,400.00

* 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.