Security Engineer (Remote)

Meet the Team

The Application Security team is a high-impact group dedicated to safeguarding our customer-facing products by identifying and mitigating security threats before they arise. Our function is to proactively stress-test our ecosystem, ensuring that our innovations remain secure, resilient, and reliable for our global users. We are a dynamic, expert-led team that balances rigorous offensive security methodologies with cutting-edge AI-driven automation. We are incredibly excited to be at the forefront of the industry, pioneering the use of agentic AI to evolve how security testing is performed at scale.

Your Impact

In this role, you will lead advanced penetration testing engagements, serving as a critical line of defense for our on-prem and cloud application portfolios. You will craft sophisticated attack plans to identify vulnerabilities, providing actionable, detailed remediation guidance to our development teams to drive product maturity. By building and operating agentic AI workflows, you will scale our testing capabilities, allowing for deeper coverage of complex system architectures. Your expertise will be instrumental in making key risk-based decisions, ensuring that our products meet the highest security standards. Ultimately, you will champion a proactive security culture, leveraging human judgment alongside autonomous agents to outpace emerging threats.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree plus 7 years of related experience, Master's plus 4 years, or PhD plus 1 year in application-level penetration testing.
• Advanced proficiency in offensive security across core areas including web applications, mobile applications, networks, and distributed systems.
• Deep technical understanding of common vulnerabilities, attack vectors, and their corresponding remediation strategies.
• Proven experience working with public cloud platforms (specifically AWS and GCP).
• Demonstrated ability to develop and maintain custom tooling using languages such as Python or Bash.

Preferred Qualifications

• Active contributions to the security community, such as research publications, CVEs, open-source projects, or bug-bounty recognitions.
• Strong proficiency in development and automation languages, including C++, Javascript, Python, or Go.
• Prior experience with Splunk products or similar large-scale data platforms.
• Demonstrated ability to build cross-functional relationships with engineering teams to drive long-term security maturity.
• Effective communication skills, with a track record of mentoring team members and providing constructive technical feedback.

Pay

The starting salary range for this position is $139,300.00 to $203,600.00 for 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. For specific states: New York City Metro Area $167,700.00 - $282,000.00; Non-Metro New York State & Washington State $149,100.00 - $250,900.00.

Employees are eligible for annual bonuses (non-sales roles) or performance-based incentive pay (sales roles). For quota-based sales roles, incentive compensation is structured with rates increasing based on attainment levels, with no cap on incentive compensation once performance exceeds 100% attainment. Cisco sales plans do not have a minimum threshold of performance for sales incentive compensation to be paid. For non-quota-based sales performance elements, Cisco may pay 0% up to 125% of target.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• 401(k) plan with Cisco matching contribution
• Paid parental leave
• Short and long-term disability coverage
• Basic life insurance
• Grants of Cisco restricted stock units (vesting following continued employment)
• 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
• 4 paid days off for personal wellness
• Non-exempt employees: 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: Flexible vacation time off program with no defined limit (subject to availability and business limitations)
• 80 hours of sick time off provided on hire date and each January 1st thereafter, with up to 80 hours of unused sick time carried forward
• Additional paid time away may be requested for critical or emergency family issues
• Optional 10 paid days per full calendar year to volunteer
• Illinois employees participate in a unique time off program to meet local requirements