Distinguished Hardware Engineer

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

Meet the Team
The Silicon & Optics (SaO) QUAD Quality team, part of Cisco's Common Hardware Group (CHG), operates at the critical intersection of field performance, customer trust, and continuous product improvement. We are seeking a Distinguished Engineer to lead our most complex root cause investigations, translate technical findings into durable defensive design improvements, and serve as the primary technical authority representing Cisco's quality standards to our executive-level customers.

Your Impact

This is a senior-level technical leadership position for someone passionate about defining and advancing hardware quality standards across Cisco's high-performance portfolio, including switching, routing, and AI data center compute products.

Responsibilities

• Define and govern comprehensive hardware quality strategies and validation standards, ensuring long-term reliability for hyperscaler, enterprise, and AI data center markets.
• Lead high-stakes root cause analysis and corrective action programs, addressing critical failures across design, manufacturing, and supply chain to ensure both immediate remediation and long-term architectural robustness.
• Institutionalize lessons learned from field and manufacturing failures by championing "defensive design" principles-such as enhanced fault tolerance and design margins-to prevent recurring issues in future generations.
• Utilize large-scale data analysis and AI-driven pattern recognition on field telemetry to proactively identify systemic trends and mitigate emerging risks before they impact customers.
• Advise executive leadership on product roadmaps, represent Cisco's quality commitments to key customers, and elevate the engineering community through mentorship and industry-wide influence.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree with 15+ years of experience; Master's degree with 14+ years; or PhD with 10+ years of related experience.
• Established depth across board and system failure domains, with a proven track record of influencing hardware design decisions upstream at the portfolio level.
• Extensive experience resolving critical, systemic quality issues across high-performance hardware programs at scale.
• Expert-level skills in leading investigations for the highest-severity customer and field issues.
• Experience applying data analysis at scale-leveraging field datasets, telemetry, and reliability databases-to execute proactive corrective actions.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience leading executive-level technical briefings on root cause, corrective action, and reliability commitments for hyperscaler and large enterprise clients.
• Deep understanding of defensive design principles at the component, board, and system levels.
• Proficiency in physical failure analysis, including non-destructive methods (CT scanning, X-ray, TDR, thermal imaging) and destructive methods (SEM, EDS, cross-sectioning, IC decapsulation).
• Familiarity with industry frameworks governing hardware qualification, accelerated life testing, and failure rate modeling.
• Knowledge of quality/reliability engineering for high-speed interfaces, power delivery systems, and advanced packaging (liquid cooling, copper cables, connectors).
• A track record of industry recognition through patents, publications, or active participation in standards bodies.

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.