Principal Software Engineer, Developer Platforms

Cisco develops solutions that connect and protect organizations across physical and digital environments. The Principal Software Engineer will provide senior technical leadership for quality systems within Developer Platforms, design production-grade platforms, guide modernization and migration efforts, and mentor senior engineers to improve 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