Software Engineer (Hybrid)
Cisco is hiring a Software Engineer (Hybrid) in San Jose, United States. It pays $168k-$245k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Cisco.
Level's read on this job
- Level rates this software engineer role Little AI ●○○○: aI is not part of the work.
- Pay on this posting starts in line with the typical software engineer posting on Level.
- The posting mentions Claude, Copilot and Cursor among its tools and skills.
- Cisco has 1,400+ other open roles on Level.
- Posted in the last few days.
AI in this role
This is a hybrid role, requiring two to three days per week at Cisco’s San Jose, CA or RTP, NC office, depending on your location.
Meet the Team
Mergers & Acquisitions IT team develops software platform to integrate acquired companies, accelerating operational synergy and time-to-value. We use secure coding practices, protect user privacy, and follow software development standards. We are looking for an experienced engineer who enjoys accelerating acquisition integration through automation, scalable software, and strong engineering practices! By joining this team, you will build relationships with a diverse set of global audiences and work with cutting-edge AI technologies to seamlessly integrate products, customers, bookings etc from acquired companies to Cisco.
Your Impact
You will lead the end-to-end technical integration of acquired entities, transforming disparate legacy stacks into cohesive, high-performance systems. You will champion an "AI-Native" engineering approach, using GenAI and agentic workflows to automate migrations and accelerate synergy realization while ensuring architectural integrity.
- Design and develop modular, API-first solutions that bridge acquired entities with Cisco’s enterprise stack, specifically targeting complex order-to-cash and subscription systems.
- Deploy GenAI/LLM orchestration, RAG pipelines, and multi-agent systems to automate due diligence, data mapping, and migration testing.
- Maintain technical standards (security, scalability, performance) across hybrid environments. Use design thinking to eliminate technical debt and ensure future-proof integrations.
- Lead AI maturity assessments and implement LLMOps (observability, latency/cost optimization, and evaluation pipelines) to ensure production-grade reliability.
- Improve the software development lifecycle and advance best practices in agile engineering.
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree with 5+ years of software engineering experience in complex, large-scale enterprise environments, including proficiency in Java/J2EE, Spring, TypeScript, Python, Snowflake, and Oracle DB.
- Experience designing, developing, and deploying full stack solutions, RESTful APIs, microservices, distributed applications, and leading projects from implementation to delivery.
- Strong experience with cloud-based and relational databases (e.g., Elasticsearch, Vector DB, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Oracle) and building solutions on AWS, Azure, and on-premises environments.
- Expertise in Cloud and DevOps development using Docker, Kubernetes, OpenShift, Jenkins CI/CD.
- Experience with AI-native engineering, including agentic frameworks, LLMs, RAG, multi-agent orchestration, and specialized AI tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Claude, Cursor).
- Experience in M&A, digital transformation, or quote-to-cash integrations.
Preferred Qualifications
- Knowledge of production monitoring, incident response, postmortems, and root cause analysis.
- Deep architectural intuition with an API-first mindset.
- Ability to thrive in high-velocity environments, navigating ambiguity to deliver innovative solutions.
- In-depth conceptual and practical knowledge in primary technical job family and knowledge of related technical job families; has worked extensively with a range of technologies.
- Strong background in object-oriented design, data structures, algorithms, testing, and software development principles.
- Experience applying spec-driven development or similar approaches to improve software quality and delivery.
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 $167,700.00 to $245,200.00 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. For quota-based incentive pay, Cisco typically pays as follows:
.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%; and
Once performance exceeds 100% attainment, incentive rates are at or above 1% for each 1% of attainment with no cap on incentive compensation.
For non-quota-based sales performance elements such as strategic sales objectives, Cisco may pay 0% up to 125% of target. Cisco sales plans do not have a minimum threshold of performance for sales incentive compensation to be paid.
The applicable full salary ranges for this position, by specific state, are listed below:
New York City Metro Area:
$167,700.00 - $282,000.00Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:
$149,100.00 - $250,900.00* For quota-based sales roles on Cisco’s sales plan, the ranges provided in this posting include base pay and sales target incentive compensation combined.
** Employees in Illinois, whether exempt or non-exempt, will participate in a unique time off program to meet local requirements.
How we rate this
Software Engineer (Hybrid) at Cisco rates 18 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Little AI (AI Level 1 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.
Little AI. AI is not part of the work.
- ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
- ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
- ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
- ●○○○ Little AI0 to 39
Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.
Prepare for this job
Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.
Skills and AI tools this role asks for
Also common in software engineer jobs at this level
Pay
- This job starts at
- $168k
- Typical software engineer job
- $168k
This posting starts close to the typical software engineer job. See software engineer jobs
Questions you could be asked
- How would you design a retrieval step so the model answers from real data instead of guessing?
- How do you decide when an AI agent can act on its own versus asking for approval first?
- What are the limits of Claude that you've run into, and how did you work around them?
- What's a project where you used Copilot hands-on?
- Walk me through how you've used Cursor in your day-to-day work.
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: RAG, AI agents, Claude, Copilot, and Cursor. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
- Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
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