Your impact
As a Staff Software Engineer within the Foundations organization, you will architect and deliver resilient, high-scale platform solutions that host Splunk's enterprise software across multi-cloud (AWS, GCP, Azure) and on-premises environments. You will balance hands-on distributed systems development with technical leadership-driving architectural decisions, establishing reliability standards, and mentoring engineers to power the next evolution of the Splunk Platform.
What you'll do- Design, develop, and maintain Splunk Platform components across multiple cloud providers (AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure) and on-premises infrastructure, focusing on scalable, secure, and maintainable software solutions.
- Oversee and participate in designing, implementing, testing, and deploying of distributed systems.
- Apply software engineering best practices in distributed systems programming, including debugging, performance tuning, and reliability engineering for complex systems like Kubernetes controllers, database platforms, and data replication.
- Define and improve service health indicators, observability, SLOs, RPO/RTO targets, alerting, runbooks, and end-to-end recovery testing.
- Lead incident diagnosis and learning, reducing operational risk and limiting customer impact through resilient design, automation, and recovery practices.
- Mentor and guide junior and mid-level engineers, promoting knowledge sharing and professional growth.
- Turn roadmap items into clear design, system boundaries, APIs, milestones, and engineering decisions.
- Lead design reviews and influence technical direction for the team’s roadmap and projects.
- Foster a culture of continuous learning and adaptability within an agile, fast-paced environment, encouraging innovation and exploration of new technologies.
- 8+ years of professional experience designing and operating large-scale distributed systems or SaaS platform infrastructure.
- Strong proficiency in Go and/or C++ for production systems development, with scripting experience in Python or Bash.
- Proven expertise building Kubernetes-native software (Custom Controllers, Operators) and deploying resilient applications across major cloud providers (AWS, GCP, or Azure).
- Deep understanding of concurrency, data replication, idempotency, partial failure modes, and eventual consistency.
- Proven track record of leading technical design reviews, author clear RFCs/design docs, and mentor engineering teams.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English, with experience collaborating across cross-functional engineering teams.
- Hands-on experience scaling and running stateful workloads in Kubernetes (PostgreSQL, distributed NoSQL databases, caching layers, or object storage).
- Experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform), CI/CD pipelines (GitLab/Jenkins), and service mesh/networking infrastructure (load balancers, API gateways, DNS, TLS).
- Practical knowledge of SRE standards, distributed tracing, alerting frameworks, and chaos/recovery testing.
- Experience driving technical deliverables in fast-paced Agile (Scrum/Kanban) environments.
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.
Skills Required
- 8+ years of professional experience designing and operating large-scale distributed systems or SaaS platform infrastructure
- Strong proficiency in Go and/or C++ for production systems development
- Scripting experience in Python or Bash
- Experience building Kubernetes-native software, including custom controllers and operators
- Experience deploying resilient applications across AWS, GCP, or Azure
- Deep understanding of concurrency, data replication, idempotency, partial failure modes, and eventual consistency
- Experience leading technical design reviews, authoring RFCs and design documents, and mentoring engineering teams
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English
- Experience collaborating across cross-functional engineering teams
- Experience scaling and running stateful workloads in Kubernetes
- Experience with PostgreSQL, distributed NoSQL databases, caching layers, or object storage
- Experience with Terraform and CI/CD pipelines using GitLab or Jenkins
- Knowledge of service mesh and networking infrastructure, including load balancers, API gateways, DNS, and TLS
- Knowledge of SRE standards, distributed tracing, alerting frameworks, and chaos or recovery testing
- Experience driving technical deliverables in Agile Scrum or Kanban environments
Cisco Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Cisco and has not been reviewed or approved by Cisco.
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Healthcare Strength — Health coverage is described as broad, with medical options including PPOs, high-deductible plans, and regional HMOs. Feedback suggests robust wellness and mental-health resources, with some locations offering on-site support and second medical opinions.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time off is highlighted through paid holidays, paid time off, and additional recharge days such as “Days for Me,” with generous volunteer time also mentioned. Feedback suggests these programs help support rest, volunteering, and critical life events.
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Parental & Family Support — Parental and family support appears extensive, including paid child-bonding leave, family medical leave, and caregiving resources. Observations also point to family-planning assistance and adoption or surrogacy support in some regions.
Cisco Insights
What We Do
Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) enables people to make powerful connections--whether in business, education, philanthropy, or creativity. Cisco hardware, software, and service offerings are used to create the Internet solutions that make networks possible--providing easy access to information anywhere, at any time. Cisco was founded in 1984 by a small group of computer scientists from Stanford University. Since the company's inception, Cisco engineers have been leaders in the development of Internet Protocol (IP)-based networking technologies. Today, with more than 71,000 employees worldwide, this tradition of innovation continues with industry-leading products and solutions in the company's core development areas of routing and switching, as well as in advanced technologies such as home networking, IP telephony, optical networking, security, storage area networking, and wireless technology. In addition to its products, Cisco provides a broad range of service offerings, including technical support and advanced services. Cisco sells its products and services, both directly through its own sales force as well as through its channel partners, to large enterprises, commercial businesses, service providers, and consumers.
