Distinguished Software Engineer

Cisco

Confirmed live yesterday High trust
Remote

Quick summary

Work type
Remote
Location
San Jose, CANorth DakotaMontanaMaineOhio
Salary
$293,900–$406,800 / yr
Posted
29 days ago
Freshness
Confirmed live yesterday
Closes
Oct 19, 2026

Market check

Salary context

Above market

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $218k
This role $350k
$124k most similar roles pay here $437k

This role pays more than 96% of similar roles. Most pay $181,250–$254,750 — the shaded band above. At the midpoint, this role pays about $350k versus about $218k for comparable roles.

Based on 240 similar postings.

Employer

About Cisco

Cisco Systems is the world''s leading networking technology company, designing and manufacturing networking hardware, telecommunications equipment, and cybersecurity solutions for businesses and governments. Industry: Networking Technology & Cybersecurity

Cisco currently has 196 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $167,700–$245,200 across 196 roles with salary data.

Most-posted roles

View all roles at Cisco

At a glance

TL;DR · Distinguished Software Engineer

As a Distinguished Software Engineer within the Security and Policy Platform Group, you will join a foundational team focused on transforming individual security products into comprehensive outcomes. You will be responsible for developing secure, scalable capabilities that allow customers to manage security policies across both Cisco and third-party products. Your daily work involves defining long-term technical visions, establishing architectural standards, and leading complex cross-functional initiatives from concept through delivery. The role requires expertise in large-scale software, platform, or distributed systems, specifically within cloud or hybrid environments. You will navigate the complexities of policy, security, and data protection while integrating services like observability, data platforms, and AI/ML systems. This position addresses the critical challenge of ensuring reliability and interoperability across diverse infrastructure, translating emerging technology trends into scalable strategies for global security and networking solutions.

What does a Software Engineer earn in California?

Median $214000 from 775 postings across 63 companies.

See salary data

What you'll do

  • Define and drive the long-term technical vision and architecture for platform and policy systems.
  • Establish and uphold engineering and architectural standards across multiple product lines and organizations.
  • Translate emerging technology trends into scalable platform strategies and business opportunities.
  • Lead complex, cross-functional initiatives spanning multiple business units from concept through delivery.
  • Mentor and influence senior and principal engineers to ensure technical leadership and consistency.
  • Represent the company in industry forums, standards bodies, patents, and strategic partnerships.
  • Drive company-wide technology strategy aligned with long-term business outcomes and market leadership.

What we're looking for

  • Bachelor's degree with 15+ years experience, Master's with 12+ years, or PhD with 10+ years in designing large-scale software or distributed systems.
  • Experience defining and influencing architecture and technical strategy across multiple teams, organizations, or product lines.
  • 10+ years of experience in policy, platform, or security systems, or as a cross-domain technology leader.
  • 8+ years of experience building and scaling highly available, secure, and distributed systems in cloud or hybrid environments.
  • Proven track record of driving company-wide or industry-level technical impact across large organizations.
  • Recognized industry leadership through patents, publications, conference speaking, or contributions to standards bodies.
  • Deep understanding of security, policy, privacy, and data protection principles within large-scale platform systems.
  • Experience integrating across platform services such as observability, data platforms, AI/ML systems, and security infrastructure.

More like this

Similar roles

Principal Software Engineer

Autodesk

Atlanta, GA 29 days ago $139,000$249,260
Distributed Systems Data Pipelines NoSQL Serverless API Design ETL Cloud Platform Schema Validation Search Relevance
8+ yrs exp Hybrid

Principal Software Engineer

CVS Health

Remote (Massachusetts) +4 63 days ago $144,200$288,400
Python GCP Vertex AI LLM MLOps Microservices RAG Vector Search React Angular CI/CD Pub/Sub BigQuery GKE Cloud Run FHIR HL7 SRE
10+ yrs exp Remote

Principal Software Engineer

Oracle

73 days ago $114,600$234,600
C Distributed Systems Cloud Architecture Python Kernel Programming Network Programming Unix Linux Elastic File System OCI HPC AI/ML
6+ yrs exp

Principal Software Engineer

General Dynamics

San Antonio, TX 55 days ago $119,000$161,000
DevSecOps CI/CD Kubernetes Docker Terraform Ansible Puppet Chef Python Java Go Bash AWS Azure Google Cloud Agile Methodology infrastructure-as-code OWASP Nessus Burp Suite Splunk
10+ yrs exp Hybrid

Principal Software Engineer

Snap Inc.

Bellevue, WA +5 52 days ago $276,000$414,000
Distributed Systems AI Tools cross platform development Software Design Debugging Performance Analysis Test Design Scalable Services
10+ yrs exp