Software Engineer – Platform-Independent Systems

About the role

The PI-Common group at Cisco builds high‑performance, platform‑independent system software that powers routers and switches worldwide. As a Software Engineer you will help develop and maintain core routing protocols and infrastructure components that enable large‑scale, resilient, and secure networking.

Key responsibilities

• Design, implement, and test new features and bug fixes for IGP protocols (OSPF, IS‑IS, EIGRP, RIP), BGP‑LS, and first‑hop redundancy protocols (HSRP, VRRP, GLBP).
• Write clean, efficient C/C++ code for multi‑threaded, system‑level environments.
• Contribute to routing infrastructure such as route‑policy handling, filtering, and prefix processing.
• Debug software using logs, traces, core files, and platform diagnostics.
• Participate in root‑cause analysis for defects and customer‑reported issues.
• Develop unit, functional, regression, and scale validation tests.
• Collaborate with platform, hardware, and test teams to verify behavior across Cisco operating systems.

Required profile

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Networking or related field.
• 1‑3 years of software development experience.
• Strong understanding of data structures, operating systems, and computer networking fundamentals.

Required skills

• C and C++ programming.
• Multi‑threaded and system‑level software development.
• Knowledge of IGP protocols (OSPF, IS‑IS, EIGRP, RIP) and BGP‑LS.
• Experience with first‑hop redundancy protocols (HSRP, VRRP, GLBP).
• Route‑policy handling, filtering, and prefix processing.
• Debugging using logs, traces, core dumps.
• Unit, functional, regression, and scale testing.