below marketmost similar roles pay hereabove market
This role pays more than
54%
of similar roles. Most pay
$193,925–$251,000
— the blue band above.
At the midpoint, this role pays about
$227k
versus about
$222k
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
307 open roles
on FindRole.
Listed pay typically runs
$167,700–$245,000
across 224 roles with salary data.
As a Staff Software Engineer on the Data & Scalability Platform team, you will provide technical leadership for the architecture, scalability, and cost of the entire data plane. You will define the multi-quarter technical direction for storage, streaming, and compute components while establishing platform-wide standards for schema design and migration safety. Your daily work involves leading major scalability initiatives, defining SLOs, and building internal frameworks for load testing, profiling, and benchmarking. You will utilize backend engineering skills in Go, Java, Rust, C++, or Python within cloud-native environments like Kubernetes and AWS or GCP. The role addresses the technical challenge of providing scalable, cost-effective evaluation and guardrails for AI agents to ensure they behave as intended while maintaining high reliability and observability.
What does a Software Engineer earn in California?
Median $214500 from 1193 postings across 76 companies.
Define and drive the multi-quarter technical roadmap for the data platform including storage, streaming, and compute.
Lead the architecture and evolution of the data plane, including storage engine selection and sharding models.
Establish platform-wide standards for schema design, migration safety, data retention, and observability.
Lead capacity and performance modeling to define SLOs for system speed and correctness.
Drive cost efficiency initiatives including cost per unit of telemetry, cost attribution, and quota design.
Design and build internal frameworks for load testing, profiling, and benchmarking for other engineering teams.
Lead production investigations to drive systemic remediation and document technology-selection decisions.
Mentor engineers and raise engineering standards through design reviews and technical documentation.
What we're looking for
Bachelor's degree with 8+ years of experience, Master's with 6+ years, or PhD with 3+ years in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field.
At least 6 years of experience building and/or operating data-intensive backend services and/or platforms.
Experience in technical leadership, including setting technical direction and driving multi-quarter initiatives.