Hardware Engineer

The Firewall Hardware Team at Cisco is responsible for designing and developing high-performance, secure firewall hardware platforms that protect enterprise, data center, and cloud networks from evolving cyber threats. This team focuses on creating advanced hardware solutions, including FPGA-based crypto accelerators and network processing units, to deliver exceptional throughput, low latency, and robust security features.

As a Senior Hardware Design Engineer, you will serve as a technical lead for the development of Cisco’s next-generation security hardware appliances. You will own the end-to-end hardware development lifecycle, from architectural definition to mass production. This role requires a high degree of autonomy, technical leadership, and the ability to drive innovation within a fast-paced environment. You will act as a subject matter expert, mentoring junior engineers and collaborating across global cross-functional teams to deliver carrier-grade products.

Key Responsibilities

• Technical Leadership: Lead the hardware development lifecycle for complex, high-performance security appliances, ensuring alignment with product roadmaps and architectural standards.
• Design Ownership: Architect and drive the creation of complex circuit designs, schematics, and PCB layouts, ensuring optimal performance, signal integrity, and manufacturability.
• System-Level Validation: Define and execute comprehensive design verification and validation (DVT) strategies, ensuring adherence to rigorous regulatory and performance specifications.
• Advanced Troubleshooting: Serve as the primary technical authority for complex root cause analysis of hardware issues, including signal integrity, power distribution, and mechanical integration.
• Strategic Collaboration: Act as a key technical liaison between hardware, software, BIOS, and manufacturing teams. Provide expert guidance to resolve cross-functional bottlenecks.
• Process & Quality: Drive continuous improvement in design methodologies, maintain high-quality technical documentation, and conduct rigorous design reviews to mitigate risk.
• Mentorship: Provide technical guidance and mentorship to junior engineering staff, fostering a culture of innovation and engineering excellence.
• Integrate AI-driven design, simulation, and diagnostic tools to streamline design cycles, enhance predictive quality analysis, and improve overall operational efficiency

• 4+ years of experience with a Masters’ degree or 7+ years of experience with a Bachelors’ degree. Experience expected to be in hardware design.
• Experience taking complex hardware products from concept to production.
• Experience with industry-standard design suites, such as Cadence Allegro/Concept, Mentor Graphics Xpedition, etc.

• Architectural Expertise: Deep proficiency in board design leveraging x86, ARM, and high-performance FPGA/SoC architectures.
• High-Speed Design: Expert-level knowledge of high-speed interface bus design (PCIe Gen 4/5, DDR5, PAM4) and high-speed Ethernet (100G/400G).
• Board-Mounted Power Design (Bonus): Demonstrated expertise in designing robust power delivery networks (PDN). Proficiency in selecting and implementing DC-DC converters, LDOs, and managing power sequencing for high-current, low-voltage processors, FPGAs, and ASICs.
• Signal & Power Integrity: Advanced capability in modeling and mitigating signal integrity and power distribution challenges in dense, high-speed systems.
• Firmware/RTL Interaction: Strong understanding of RTL design (Verilog/System-Verilog) and its interaction with hardware/BIOS.
• Communication: Exceptional ability to communicate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

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. 

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:

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:

* 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.