Senior Staff Software Engineer (hybrid) - ES Threat Detections

Senior Staff Software Engineer

This role is hybrid with a balance between onsite and remote work. The ES Threat Detections engineering team is home to promising talent and is pivotal in shaping the roadmap for Enterprise Security's content management. Their work on evolving detection methodologies positions them at the forefront of cybersecurity innovation, directly impacting how organizations detect and mitigate threats effectively. The team consists of dedicated engineers who are not only technically skilled but also highly collaborative and fun to work with. They foster a high-performance culture that values innovation, teamwork, and continuous improvement, making it an exciting and rewarding environment. We are a passionate, collaborative team that cares deeply about our customers and teammates. In this role, you will work directly with Product Management, Architects, our Design and other engineering teams to help derive the best experience for the customer. We have a lean process that focuses on empowering and serving our engineers as opposed to just advising them.

Your Impact: As a Senior Staff Software Engineer, you will lead, inspire, and develop a high-performing team that delivers innovative AI/ML solutions at scale. Your leadership will shape the AI strategy, guide scientific and engineering innovation, and ensure Splunk's products remain at the cutting edge of cybersecurity and observability. You will:

• Develop software consistent with Cisco 'Design Thinking Principles' with a focus on simplification and UX (User Experience) at its core, using secure coding practices, ensuring user privacy, and following software development best practices.
• Partner with other teams including design and product management to create the right solution for the customers.
• Create technical design documentation to be used by the team as well as contributing to user documentation to be used by end users.
• Debug and address software issues during development and in production systems to support customers.
• Bring new ideas for product innovation and help improve software development processes.

What You'll Do: Recognized as an expert within Cisco. Proactively identify and participate in the resolution of complex problems that impact the direction of the business. Develop and deliver innovative strategies that benefit customers and/or clients. Lead major business projects which impact a region or entire function. Contribute to the development of annual organizational objectives/priorities. Build and maintain long-term relationships with key stakeholders to ensure products and services reflect the needs and direction of the business. Translate and influence the regional or functional strategic vision into a technical vision with clear engineering priorities, ensuring understanding and alignment across teams. May lead projects that span the business segment, function or region. May drive large features from technical design through completion. Lead the development and implementation of software development lifecycle and agile engineering strategies across applicable teams in anticipation of the changing software development environment. Influence technical direction and deliverables across the function. Recognize and make trade-offs with respect to the whole system and define new product categories. Lead design choices within the context of all Cisco offerings. Drive product success through creating metrics and influencing product adoption and direction. Write and set the standard for functional clean code. Develop and drive utilization and support for processes for issue identification and sustainable response, proactive tooling, and continuous improvement for production systems. Industry or thought leader on scale, performance, or design patterns. May represent or present team outputs at external events. Communicate product or program priorities, deadlines, and shifts in requirements in the context of engineering priorities and user needs. Negotiate and drive trade-offs in timing, design, and specifications to meet the needs of users and cross-functional partners. Lead, mentor, and influence senior engineers. Improve knowledge sharing processes.

Minimum Qualifications: Bachelors + 12 years of related experience, or Masters + 8 years of related experience, or PhD + 5 years of related experience. Experience incorporating AI coding tools to streamline and enhance the process and speed of software development. Expert using languages such as Python, Java, C/C++, or similar languages. Expert of client-side scripting and JavaScript frameworks (React and/or BackboneJS). Expertise in front-end technologies (HTML5, CSS3, Responsive Design, etc.). A deep understanding of data structures, algorithms, and RESTful APIs. A deep understanding of scalable distributed web applications using open source or proprietary technologies. Experience integrating agentic AI and assistive AI into web applications. Ability to learn new technologies quickly and to understand a wide variety of technical challenges to be solved. Strong collaborative and interpersonal skills, specifically a consistent track record to effectively work with others within a dynamic environment. Has a wide-range of experiences and sophisticated technical acumen serving as an advisor to management.

Preferred Qualifications: Proponent of test-driven development (TDD) and understanding of CI/CD technologies. Experience with secure coding practices. Familiarity with orchestration and cloud stack and technologies like K8s, Kinesis, Kafka. SIEM or data platform architecture with an understanding of scale, latency, cost, and schema realities. Detection Engineering/Threat expertise. Understanding of MITRE ATT&CK and threat actor TTP and kill chain concepts. Hands on with SIEM detection languages (SPL, KQL, YARA-L, Sigma). Detection as code concepts - versioning, CI/CD, validation.

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 $210,600.00 to $305,100.00 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.

Cisco is an Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, genetic information, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected basis. Cisco will consider for employment, on a case by case basis, qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.