Technical Leader, DPU Networking and AI Infrastructure

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

This is a Hybrid position located in Milpitas, Ca. Ideally 3 days per week in office.

Meet the Team
 

Cisco is building a next-generation DPU-enabled networking platform for secure, high-performance infrastructure and large-scale AI clusters. Our team is responsible for designing the foundational networking, security, and programmable services that span host systems, DPUs, SmartNICs, and cloud-scale control planes. We work at the intersection of systems software, hardware acceleration, distributed security, and AI infrastructure, creating platforms that deliver line-rate performance, strong isolation, operational reliability, and simplified deployment across modern data center environments.

We are looking for a technical leader to define the architecture for host networking, DPU offload, distributed security, and programmable network services across modern DPU and SmartNIC platforms.

Your Impact 

• Lead architecture for DPU-accelerated host networking, security, and network services.
• Define what runs on the DPU versus the host CPU, including tradeoffs around performance, cost, failure isolation, observability, debuggability, and operational complexity.
• Architect distributed firewalling, micro segmentation, virtual routing, service chaining, traffic steering, and line-rate policy enforcement.
• Guide platform decisions across DPU SDKs, programmable pipelines, Linux networking, control-plane services, telemetry, policy distribution, and upgrade models.
• Design APIs, policy models, configuration flows, state synchronization mechanisms, and recovery behavior for distributed networking systems.
• Build static-stability and failure-mode thinking into the architecture so the system behaves predictably during partial failures, control-plane loss, upgrades, rollbacks, and fleet-wide rollout.
• Provide technical leadership for AI cluster networking challenges, including congestion collapse, incast, ECMP imbalance, PFC/ECN behavior, noisy tenants, NIC firmware issues, switch misconfiguration, and GPU underutilization caused by network stalls.
• Align cross-functional stakeholders across hardware, firmware, product, and customer-facing teams to successfully translate complex architectural visions into shippable software.
• Elevate engineering standards across the organization through meticulous design reviews, proactively identifying systemic risks to scale, reliability, and security.
• Mentor senior engineering talent, accelerating team growth and technical depth in packet processing, host networking, and control-plane design.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree with significant related experience, or advanced degree with equivalent experience in networking, systems software, distributed systems, or infrastructure engineering.
• Deep experience designing and building production networking systems, security platforms, cloud networking, host networking, or large-scale infrastructure software.
• Proficiency in systems programming experience using C/C++, Go, Rust, Python, or similar languages.
• Applied skills in Linux networking, packet processing, routing, policy enforcement, virtualization, and production debugging.
• Demonstrated ability to lead architecture across multiple teams and drive complex technical decisions from concept through production.

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on experience with DPU, SmartNIC, NIC offload, NPU, ASIC, or hardware-accelerated networking platforms.
• Experience with NVIDIA BlueField/DOCA, AMD Pensando, DPU SDKs, P4 or P4-like programmable pipelines, DPDK, OVS, tc, eBPF/XDP, SR-IOV, VF/PF, or kernel bypass.
• Experience architecting firewall, microsegmentation, NAT, virtual routing, VTEP, load balancing, traffic steering, service insertion, or service chaining systems.
• Proficient understanding of AI/HPC cluster networking behavior, including RDMA/RoCE, PFC, ECN, ECMP, congestion management, telemetry, and failure diagnosis.
• Experience designing distributed control planes with attention to consistency, state ownership, upgrade safety, rollback, policy convergence, and fleet operations.
• Ability to balance hardware offload, software portability, customer-visible simplicity, performance, and long-term platform maintainability.

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.