System Hardware Board Design Engineer (Onsite)

This position requires that you live within commuting distance of our Milpitas, CA office and commute to the lab 5 days per week.

About the Team

The Common Hardware Group (CHG) creates innovative hardware platforms central to the AI era, powering Cisco’s core Switching, Routing, and Wireless products for organizations globally. Our innovations in silicon, optics, and hardware platforms—like Silicon One—are shaping the technology industry. We're a global team of creative experts, bringing our unique backgrounds and bold ideas to push boundaries and help each other grow. Because full product development—from design to qualification to production—is within our team, we’re able to think differently, experiment more, and work quickly.

Cisco Silicon One is the only unifying silicon architecture in the market that enables customers to deploy the best-of-breed silicon from Top of Rack (TOR) switches through web-scale data centers and across service providers, enterprise networks, and data centers with a fully unified routing and switching portfolio. The Cisco Service Provider Routing Hardware Engineering team develops next-generation hardware by adhering to IEEE standards and industry best practices. Our engineers drive innovation across the full product lifecycle, serving as IP architects, creators, and solution integrators who manage products from concept to production. The team specializes in key technical domains, including system and board design, PCB layout, hardware automation, validation, signal integrity, and power design. By partnering cross-functionally with system designers, diagnostics and customer escalation engineers, and external vendors, the team ensures robust test methodologies, timely issue mitigation, and high product quality.

Responsibilities

• Own design and validation of a server sub-system.
• Ensure design meets functional specs.
• Participate as a valuable team member to deliver quality products on time.
• Participate in cross-functional meetings and teams.
• Participate in creating functional specifications and technical documentation.
• Work with and manage JDMs for server product development.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering and 4+ years of experience, or Master’s in Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering and 2+ years of related experience, or PhD in Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering and 0+ years of related experience.
• Experience with high-speed hardware board designs and validation.
• Experience with taking board designs from concept through production including schematics generation, layouts, and troubleshooting.
• Experience in hardware validation using lab equipment such as Oscilloscopes, Logic Analyzers, and Spectrum Analyzers.
• Hands-on board design knowledge, including design tools such as Cadence Concept and Allegro.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with networking products design.
• Experience creating test scripts in Python.
• Experience collaborating with cross-functional teams.
• Effective verbal and written communication skills.

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.

Pay

The starting salary range for this position is $138,100.00 to $196,500.00 for new hires 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 specific locations is listed below:

• New York City Metro Area: $138,100.00 - $226,000.00
• Non-Metro New York State & Washington State: $124,000.00 - $201,000.00

For quota-based sales roles on Cisco’s sales plan, the ranges provided 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.
• Basic life insurance.
• Grants of Cisco restricted stock units, which vest following continued employment with Cisco for defined periods of time.
• 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 a 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.
• Annual bonuses subject to Cisco’s policies for non-sales roles.
• For employees on sales plans, performance-based incentive pay split between quota and non-quota components.