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Site Reliability Engineering Technical Leader

Cisco

Cisco

Software Engineering, IT
North Carolina, USA
Posted on Aug 7, 2025

The application window is expected to close on: October 8th 2025.

Job posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or if a sufficient number of applications are received.

The preferred location for this role is RTP, North Carolina, US. Onsite 2 days a week.

Meet the Team

We in Cisco IT are going through a major transformation increasing automation of our business processes to reduce time to capability and improve performance. To support this transformation, we are looking for an experienced and dedicated individual to expand our capabilities by adopting industry leading automation technologies. Work independently, receive minimal guidance and direction from manager then use the best approach to accomplish work. Solve sophisticated problems. Collaborate with customers, peers, account leaders and external and internal partners for network solving. Contribution result in business or process improvements globally within the function. Solve complex problems; use sophisticated analytical thought to exercise judgment and identify innovative solutions. Anticipate business and industry issues; recommend functional process or service improvements; have an expert understanding of and act as a catalyst to the improvement of Cisco’s products, services, and customers. Major focus on LAN, WAN, Wireless management & operations with Scripting skills. As we transition to AI-driven network operations, it is essential to develop models and automation that harness the power of AI and intelligent agents. These tools will streamline common tasks, minimize manual effort, and significantly reduce operational toil within our network.

Your Impact

  • Lead and mentor a team of Site Reliability Engineers, fostering a culture of collaboration, learning, and continuous improvement.
  • Define and implement SRE standard practices, processes, principles, and strategies across the organization.
  • Partner with engineering, product, and operations teams to align reliability goals with business objectives.
  • Lead/Implement tools and automation to improve efficiency in monitoring, alerting, capacity planning, and incident management.
  • Reduce manual intervention through automation of operational workflows and processes.
  • Lead incident response during outages and ensure root cause analysis is conducted.
  • Advocate for retrospective and continuous feedback loops to prevent recurrence of issues.
  • Act as the SRE domain expert, enabling teams to adopt and implement reliability standard processes.
  • Work as lead engineer on user incidents and cases to resolution and provide phenomenal user experience
  • Communicate effectively with partners to provide clarity into health and incident status.
  • Drive multi-functional initiatives to improve operational and engineering efficiency.

Minimum Qualifications

  • Bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, a related field, and 5+ years relevant work experience.
  • Expertise with development coding languages such as Java or Python in a CI/CD, DevOps model with knowledge of Jenkins, GIT.
  • Advanced knowledge of network controllers for operations & monitoring technologies such as Catalyst Center (CatC), Meraki Dashboard, etc.
  • Certifications a plus: Devnet Professional, CCIE, CWNP, etc.
  • AI literacy, data analytics & visualization, AI-driven automation, prompt engineering or AI security.

Preferred Qualifications

  • Experience working in an agile environment with exposure to Agile tools like Jira.
  • Strong solving and problem-solving skills with a focus on getting to the root of the problem.
  • Excellent communication and collaborator leadership skills.
  • Oversee on-call rotations and ensure effective response to production incidents.
  • Experience in leading and mentoring technical teams to ensure high availability and reliability of services.

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. Simply put – we power the future.

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:

When available, the salary range posted for this position reflects the projected hiring range for new hire, full-time salaries in U.S. and/or Canada locations, not including equity or benefits. For non-sales roles the hiring ranges reflect base salary only; employees are also eligible to receive annual bonuses. Hiring ranges for sales positions include base and incentive compensation target. Individual pay is determined by the candidate's hiring location and additional factors, including but not limited to skillset, experience, and relevant education, certifications, or training. Applicants may not be eligible for the full salary range based on their U.S. or Canada hiring location. The recruiter can share more details about compensation for the role in your location during the hiring process.

U.S. employees have access to quality medical, dental and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution, short and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance and numerous wellbeing offerings.

Employees receive up to twelve paid holidays per calendar year, which includes one floating holiday (for non-exempt employees), plus a day off for their birthday. Non-Exempt new hires accrue up to 16 days of vacation time off each year, at a rate of 4.92 hours per pay period. Exempt new hires participate in Cisco’s flexible Vacation Time Off policy, which does not place a defined limit on how much vacation time eligible employees may use, but is subject to availability and some business limitations. All new hires are eligible for Sick Time Off subject to Cisco’s Sick Time Off Policy and will have eighty (80) hours of sick time off provided on their hire date and on January 1st of each year thereafter. Up to 80 hours of unused sick time will be carried forward from one calendar year to the next such that the maximum number of sick time hours an employee may have available is 160 hours. Employees in Illinois have a unique time off program designed specifically with local requirements in mind. All employees also have access to paid time away to deal with critical or emergency issues. We offer additional paid time to volunteer and give back to the community.

Employees on sales plans earn performance-based incentive pay on top of their base salary, which is split between quota and non-quota components. 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 up to 125% of target. Cisco sales plans do not have a minimum threshold of performance for sales incentive compensation to be paid.