Principal Engineer - Optical Development

Meet the team:

Join Our Team at the Forefront of AI Infrastructure Innovation

As AI infrastructure expands exponentially, it is essential to redesign our optical systems to address increasing challenges related to cost, power, and rack space. To support this growth, we must simplify and design cost-efficient optical solutions. Join our innovative team and experience the excitement of complete product development from design to deployment.

Our team has delivered two Pioneer (now Pinnacle) Award products at Cisco.

Cisco Networking Engineering (CNE), formerly known as Distributed Systems Engineering (DSE), is a multi-billion-dollar business generating revenue from the Web, Service Provider Edge, Core, and Optical markets. The organization in India handles the development of high-end routers like ASR+000, NCS5500, NCS540, NCS560, NCS5700, and optical products such as NCS1010, NCS1014, NCS1004, NCS4000, and NCS2000 series. We offer exciting career opportunities for enthusiastic and experienced software professionals in India.

Responsibilities:
• Lead and mentor a team of engineers, fostering a culture of innovation and excellence.
• Architect flex-grid long-haul line systems, considering transmission characteristics of fiber and line system elements, including signal power/OSNR evolution and fiber nonlinearities.
• Collaborate on the architecture, design, and validation of distributed, link-level optical line system control systems in close cooperation with software development and test teams.
• Work in a co-development model with key Hyperscaler to design future systems.
• Work closely with the test team to validate and simplify solutions.
• Create comprehensive documentation to ensure use cases are clear.
• Drive the overall strategy and vision for your team's contributions to the AI infrastructure space.

Minimum Qualifications:
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
• 10+ years of experience in software engineering with a focus on large-scale systems.
• Hands-on experience with DWDM transmission systems, including coherent transponders, EDFAs, Raman amplifiers, and ROADMs is desirable
• Understanding of HW architecture and SW architecture for optical line systems
• Strong programming skills in languages such as C, Java, Python, C++, or similar.
• Experience of working with cross functional teams viz PLM, HW team, Algorithm team, FPGA vendor, optical component vendor to drive architecture for new DWDM based system.
• Hands on experience of design and implementation of optical applications viz span loss, automatic power control, raman amplifier tuning, link tuner

Preferred Qualifications:
• Experience of implementing northbound interface towards NMS / controller based on Netconf, Yang, GNOI, gNMI, telemetry
• Proven experience in leading technical projects and teams.
• Excellent problem-solving skills and attention to detail.
• Strong communication and collaboration abilities.
• Experience with cloud technologies, microservices architecture, and agile methodologies is a plus.
• Experience with test-driven development is desirable.

Why Cisco

#WeAreCisco where every individual brings their unique skills and perspectives together to pursue our purpose of powering an inclusive future for all.

Our passion is connection—we celebrate our employees’ diverse set of backgrounds and focus on unlocking potential. Cisconians often experience one company, many careers where learning and development are encouraged and supported at every stage. Our technology, tools, and culture pioneered hybrid work trends, allowing all to not only give their best, but be their best.

We understand our outstanding opportunity to bring communities together and at the heart of that is our people. One-third of Cisconians collaborate in our 30 employee resource organizations, called Inclusive Communities, to connect, foster belonging, learn to be informed allies, and make a difference. Dedicated paid time off to volunteer—80 hours each year—allows us to give back to causes we are passionate about, and nearly 86% do!

Our purpose, driven by our people, is what makes us the worldwide leader in technology that powers the internet. Helping our customers reimagine their applications, secure their enterprise, transform their infrastructure, and meet their sustainability goals is what we do best. We ensure that every step we take is a step towards a more inclusive future for all. Take your next step and be you, with us!