Principal Software Engineer, Developer Platforms

Cisco is revolutionizing how data and infrastructure connect and protect organizations in the AI era. They are seeking a Principal Software Engineer to provide technical leadership for quality systems and design platforms that enhance software validation and release confidence.

Responsibilities:

• Provide senior technical leadership for quality systems across Developer Platforms
• Design production-grade platforms that improve software validation and release confidence across Splunk
• Partner with technical leaders across Splunk and Cisco to translate architectural change into practical platform direction
• Guide modernization and migration efforts across multiple engineering teams
• Contribute hands-on while mentoring senior engineers; success means durable platforms that teams adopt and that measurably improve delivery confidence

Requirements:

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience designing, building, and operating production-grade systems or internal platforms
• 3+ years of experience in one or more of developer platforms, quality engineering, test frameworks, CI/CD, build systems, release automation, infrastructure platforms, or developer tooling
• Experience with automated testing, release pipelines, service architecture, distributed systems, or comparable modern software development practices
• Experience leading architectural change, platform modernization, or large-scale technical migrations across multiple engineering teams
• Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
• Experience providing technical leadership across teams without direct reporting authority
• Experience building platforms for large internal engineering communities or organizations with thousands of developers
• Experience with AI-enabled engineering workflows, quality analytics, or emerging developer productivity technologies
• Ability to create clarity, communicate complex technical ideas, and align engineers, managers, and cross-functional stakeholders
• Passion for improving developer experience, engineering quality, automation, and software delivery confidence