Software Engineering Technical Leader -- Secure Workload Agent

The application window is expected to close on: 08/11/2026Job posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or if a sufficient number of applications are received.Meet the Team Isovalent, now part of Cisco, was founded by the creators of Cilium and eBPF and is building the next generation of cloud-native networking and security technologies. Within Cisco Security, the Secure Workload engineering team develops the Unified Agent that provides runtime visibility, workload protection, and policy enforcement across physical servers, virtual machines, cloud infrastructure, and containerized environments. As the platform footprint continues to expand, the team is investing in support for additional operating systems and processor architectures, including IBM AIX on Power, IBM System z, Solaris/SPARC, and other specialized enterprise platforms. This work enables Cisco to support some of the world’s largest financial institutions, government organizations, and enterprise customers running mission-critical infrastructure. This is a highly technical engineering team where software engineers work close to the operating system, compilers, and kernel. Team members own complex platform enablement efforts, collaborate closely with engineers across the Secure Workload and Isovalent organizations, and contribute to technologies that power runtime security for modern infrastructure. Your Impact As a Software Engineering Technical Leader, you will design, develop, and optimize the Secure Workload Unified Agent across multiple operating systems and hardware architectures. You will work on low-level systems software, kernel interactions, and platform enablement to ensure the agent delivers high performance, reliability, and security across a broad range of enterprise environments. Success in this role comes from independently delivering complex engineering projects, maintaining high software quality, and helping extend the Unified Agent to new enterprise platforms while mentoring other engineers on the team. In this role, you will: Design, develop, and optimize low-level software components for the Secure Workload Unified Agent using C, with a focus on operating system and kernel-level functionality. Develop and maintain support for enterprise operating systems and architectures including Linux, IBM AIX, IBM Power, IBM System z, Solaris, and other supported platforms. Diagnose complex software issues using crash dump and core dump analysis, debugging tools, and operating system internals to improve product reliability and performance. Collaborate with engineers across Secure Workload, Tetragon, and Isovalent to deliver runtime security capabilities and platform enhancements for enterprise customers. Mentor junior engineers through technical guidance, design discussions, and code reviews while driving engineering excellence across the team. Minimum Qualifications Bachelor’s degree with 12+ years of related experience, or Master’s degree with 8+ years of related experience, or PhD with 5+ years of related experience. Experience developing software in C for Linux or UNIX-based operating systems. Experience with operating system internals, kernel programming, or kernel driver development. Experience with compilers, cross-platform compilation, and debugging techniques including crash dump or core dump analysis. Experience developing software for enterprise operating systems or multiple processor architectures. Preferred Qualifications Experience developing software for IBM AIX. Experience developing software for IBM Power (PowerPC) and/or IBM System z (s390x) architectures. Experience developing software for Solaris or other UNIX operating systems. Experience developing host-based security, endpoint, networking, or systems software that interacts with operating system kernels. Experience mentoring software engineers and leading technical design or implementation efforts across complex engineering projects. 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 $214,100.00 to $309,800.00 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 employees1 paid day off for employee’s birthday, paid year-end holiday shutdown, and 4 paid days off for personal wellness determined by CiscoNon-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 employeesExempt 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 nextAdditional paid time away may be requested to deal with critical or emergency issues for family membersOptional 10 paid days per full calendar year to volunteerFor 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%; andOnce 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:$214,100.00 - $356,300.00Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:$192,400.00 - $317,200.00* 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.Job SummaryJob number: 2021754Date posted : 2026-08-07Profession: Product and EngineeringEmployment type: Full time