Lead SW Post-Silicon Validation Engineer

Welcome to the Post-Silicon Validation Team at Cisco! Ourgroup offers a unique combination of a startup culture with the benefits of working for the leading networking company in the world. You will engage in dynamic collaboration with verification engineers, designers, and cross-functional teams, working together to ensure the successful verification of the ASIC throughout its lifecycle.

Operating at the forefront of technology, we work with cutting-edge, high-speed, and power-hungry devices. Our small, but highly influential team thrives in this challenging environment, leveraging our expertise to impact the future of networking technology. With a commitment to excellence and a passion transformative technology, we are shaping the future of high-performance Networking and delivering unparalleled value in every project we undertake. Join us and be a part of a team where professionalism meets impact!

Lead validation of high-performance networking silicon. This role is responsible for validating complex networking ASICs in real hardware environments, developing robust validation software, and driving root-cause analysis of silicon, firmware, and system-level issues. The ideal candidate will bring deep understanding of hardware-software interactions and hands-on experience validating networking features from silicon bring-up through production readiness.

• Lead post-silicon validation efforts for networking ASICs

• Own and execute comprehensive validation plans covering functionality, performance, power, and reliability
• Drive silicon bring-up, stepping qualification, and production readiness activities
• Mentor engineers and provide technical guidance across validation efforts
• Architect and develop validation software, diagnostics, and automation frameworks
• Write low-level and system software (C/C++, Python) to exercise networking features and hardware blocks
• Develop stress, scale, and long-duration tests to uncover silicon defects
• Integrate validation tests into regression and continuous test environments
• Perform complex hardware-software co-debug using lab and software tools
• Analyze packet flows, performance counters, traces, and logs to identify failure mechanisms
• Isolate issues across silicon, firmware, drivers, and OS layers
• Partner with SDK, architecture, and firmware teams to drive issue resolution
• Validate networking protocols and features such as Ethernet, switching, routing, QoS, traffic management, and security
• Validate high-speed interfaces (e.g., Ethernet PHY/MAC, PCIe, SerDes, DDR5, USB3.x)
• Validate low speed interfaces (e.g., USB2.0, eMMC, SPI, MDIO, I2C, UART)
• Exercise data plane and control plane functionality under real-world traffic conditions
• Work closely with architecture, SDK, firmware, systems, and software teams
• Provide structured feedback to improve silicon robustness, debuggability, and testability
• Document validation results, silicon issues, and recommended workarounds

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field with 8+ years of experience in post-silicon validation and debug
• Experience in C/C++for system-level or low-level software development
• Scripting experience in Pythonfor test automation and analysis
• Experience with networking architectures and protocols
• Experience with hardware-software co-debug in lab environments
• Debug experience with: DDR5, USB3.0, SGMII, PCIe Gen3, USB2.0, eMMC, SPI, MDIO, I2C, UART.

• Experience with networking ASICs, switches, routers, or NPUs

• Knowledge of Ethernet standards (1G-800G), PCIe, and high-speed SerDes
• Experience with Linux kernel, drivers, networking stacks
• Familiarity with traffic generators, packet analyzers, and protocol analyzers
• Experience with performance benchmarking, latency analysis, and throughput optimization

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.

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 ofunused sick timecarried forwardfrom one calendar yearto 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:

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:

* 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.