Software Engineer, Backend (Remote)

Application window expected to close on 08/25/2026; posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or sufficient applications are received.

About the Team

The Time Series Data (TSD) team builds and operates the time-series database and supporting software components that store and serve the telemetry behind Cisco Meraki's Dashboard. Our infrastructure ingests and serves millions of data points per second from a fleet holding petabytes of telemetry—data that powers the network insights customers see in Dashboard and feeds product teams, monitoring, analytics, and data lakes across Cisco. We're a small, expert team that owns this software end to end, holds itself to a high bar, and takes an observability-driven approach to high-impact work in areas like reliability, high availability, business continuity, performance, and scalability. This role suits someone who wants to go deep on core data infrastructure in C++, take on real responsibility, and learn from the engineers around them.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, ship, analyze, and maintain scalable, distributed, enterprise software solutions that support the services which record and consume telemetry data.
• Build and maintain backend components using C++ in a Linux environment.
• Focus on increasing reliability, performance, scalability, testability, maintainability, observability, and developer experience.
• Work with various groups within Cisco to understand their and our customers’ data requirements and requests.

Requirements

• Distributed Systems: Experience analyzing, scaling, troubleshooting, and debugging distributed systems.
• C++ Development: Experience developing software using C++11 or newer standards.
• CI/CD & Containerization: Experience implementing CI/CD pipelines (GitLab or GitHub) and deploying applications using containerization and Kubernetes.
• Database Management: Experience designing and querying relational databases using SQL (PostgreSQL or MySQL).
• Development Lifecycle: Experience utilizing automated testing frameworks and LLM-based coding assistants within the software development lifecycle.

Preferred Qualifications

• Programming experience in Rust, Scala, Python.
• Experience with observability tooling such as OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Grafana.
• Experience with feature flagging tools such as Launch Darkly.
• Experience maintaining database software.
• Experience or willingness to work in an agile environment (Scrum, Kanban, etc.).
• Able to comment on the difference between 'prompt engineering', 'context engineering', and 'agentic engineering'.

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.

Pay

The starting salary range for this position is $155,000.00 to $222,600.00 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. The full salary range for certain locations is listed below:

• New York City Metro Area: $155,000.00 - $256,000.00
• Non-Metro New York State & Washington State: $138,100.00 - $227,900.00

For quota-based sales roles, the ranges include base pay and sales target incentive compensation combined.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution.
• Paid parental leave, short and long-term disability coverage, and basic life insurance.
• Restricted stock units (RSUs) that vest following continued employment.
• Paid time off:
  • 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 receive 16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year, accrued at 4.92 hours per pay period.
  • Exempt employees participate in Cisco’s flexible vacation time off program with no defined limit (subject to 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 for critical or emergency family issues.
  • Optional 10 paid days per full calendar year to volunteer.
• Annual bonuses for non-sales roles, subject to Cisco’s policies.
• For sales roles, performance-based incentive pay split between quota and non-quota components:
  • Quota-based incentive pay:
    • 0.75% 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%.
    • Once performance exceeds 100% attainment, incentive rates are at or above 1% for each 1% of attainment with no cap.
  • Non-quota-based sales performance elements: 0% up to 125% of target.

Employees in Illinois, whether exempt or non-exempt, will participate in a unique time off program to meet local requirements.