Principal Tetragon Software Engineer

About the role

Tetragon is a flexible, Kubernetes-aware observability and security tool that delivers real-time insights and enforcement. As a Principal Engineer, you will guide architectural direction while building the systems that power our platform.

Responsibilities

• Develop high-quality Go (and eBPF) code for the Tetragon project.
• Extend Tetragon capabilities to mitigate security vulnerabilities.
• Design and optimize systems to deploy and manage Tetragon across large fleets, in K8s or other environments (VMs).
• Architect infrastructure that converts raw event data into intelligence streams with minimal performance overhead.
• Partner across teams to align requirements, define integration points, and deliver production-ready solutions.
• Contribute to open-source projects and represent Cisco Isovalent in community discussions.
• Participate in architecture reviews, code reviews, and documentation.

Requirements

• Bachelors + 15 years of related experience, or Masters + 12 years of related experience, or PhD + 8 years of related experience or equivalent experience.
• 10+ years of experience in systems programming (C, C++, Go, Rust, or similar; Tetragon is primarily written in Go).
• Proven experience leading technical direction or architecture for runtime security systems, observability, or similar.
• Experience in OS-level development, distributed systems, or database systems.
• Experience in debugging and performance optimization with a track record of delivering scalable systems.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building eBPF-based systems for observability or security use cases.
• Solid background in Linux systems and kernel-level concepts.
• Familiarity with Kubernetes and cloud-native environments.
• Familiarity with CVE workflows, vulnerability data pipelines, or security event modeling.
• Familiarity with how vulnerable software is exploited at all levels.
• Contributions to open-source projects in networking, observability, or distributed systems.
• Experience working across diverse, distributed teams.

Benefits

At Cisco, we offer competitive salaries, comprehensive health and welfare benefits, and a variety of programs designed to support your well-being and career growth. Our benefits package includes:

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• A 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution
• Paid parental leave
• Short and long-term disability coverage
• Basic life insurance
• Volunteer time off
• Flexible vacation time off
• Performance-based incentive pay for quota-based sales roles

Pay

The starting salary range for this position is $231,400.00 to $331,800.00 and reflects the projected salary range for new hires in U.S. and/or Canadian locations, not including incentive compensation, equity, or benefits.

Schedule

Full-time position.