Principal Software Engineer - Isovalent

The application window is expected to close on: 06/10/2026

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

Meet the Team

Iovalent, now part of Cisco, is the company founded by the creators of Cilium and eBPF. Cisco Secure Workload is a flagship security product offering workload protection, micro-segmentation, and is part of the Hybrid Mesh Firewall solution. Cisco Isovalent and Cisco Secure Workload are together building the next generation of products for securing workloads and AI infrastructure.

We believe in fostering an inclusive and diverse workplace where every team member feels valued, respected, and empowered. We believe that every employee contributes to our success, and we are committed to fostering an environment where everyone can thrive. We encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply and join us in our mission to deliver exceptional products and services.

Your Impact

We are a highly dynamic engineering organization that works on building software for workload security products that cater to highly complex and scalable customer environments to protect their crown jewel application workloads from increasingly complex threat vectors.

As a Principal Engineer with our Backend Services team, you will work with and provide technical leadership to a team of highly motivated engineers working on solutions to ship or deploy for our customers, with a focus on improving Scale, Performance, Reliability, Robustness, and, most importantly, Security.

In this role you’ll act as a SME, advising on technical vision, roadmaps, leadership, and make architectural contributions in backend services that:

• Collect and process telemetry at scale from data sources in customer environments

• React to changes in environment and render policies in highly scalable manner to large number of enforcement points

• Implement API endpoints that need to respond with minimal latencies even when crunching large volumes of data.

• Will be deployed in highly complex distributed system environments and involve failure modes unique to those environments.

Minimum Qualifications

• At least 10+ years' experience building software systems in one or more programming languages such as Go, C++, or Java.

• At least 5+ years in a technical leadership role in a software engineering environment

• Masters + 10 years related experience, or Bachelors + 12 years of related experience, or PhD + 5 years related experience or equivalent related work experience; degree to be in Computer Science, Engineering, or related technical field.

• Agile experience

Preferred Qualifications

• Proficiency in Computer Science foundational areas, including algorithms, systems, databases, performance engineering and security architecture

• Schema/Data modeling design experience

• Experience with large-scale event processing architectures

• Experience in systems programming and performance engineering

• Experience working with security architecture and database design

• Kubernetes experience

• Experience programming using cloud APIs for AWS, Azure, or GCP

• A technical leader who embraces agile methodologies that involve rapid prototyping by feedback gathered from customers, peers and technical solution architects, customer enablement engineers and support engineers.

• A software engineering technical leader enjoys architecting, designing, analyzing, and brainstorming solutions that improve the product and produce customer-facing capabilities.

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 $231,400.00 to $331,800.00 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 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:

$231,400.00 - $381,600.00

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:

$222,900.00 - $343,600.00

• 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.

Cisco is an Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, genetic information, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected basis.

Cisco will consider for employment, on a case by case basis, qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.