Principal Software Engineer

Job Summary

At Cisco, youll join a diverse and collaborative team of innovators dedicated to crafting the future of optical technology. As a Principal engineer here, youll have the opportunity to solve complex challenges in high-capacity optical transmission and make a significant impact at a global scale. We value creativity, continuous learning, and a passion for building reliable, high-performance, and ground-breaking DWDM systems. Together, were driving the next generation of optical connectivity and digital infrastructure.

Your Impact

As a Principal Engineer - Optical Solutions Lead, you will serve as a authority and advisor to Ciscos engineering business and management. You will guide the direction of DWDM optical line systems, ROADM platforms, and high-speed coherent transponders. You will define and drive the adoption of ground breaking optical transport technologies, represent Cisco in key industry standards bodies, and guide the development and customer delivery of new DWDM products. You will:

• Guide engineering leaders and teams through the orchestration of DWDM projects and the architecture of optical transport systems.
• Advise senior management on sophisticated and physical-layer challenges, providing insights for product and portfolio decisions.
• Lead the definition, design, and integration of innovative DWDM line systems, open optical line systems (OOLS), ROADM architectures (CDC/Flex-Grid), controllers and coherent transponder platforms.
• Work closely with PLM, Eng, Architecture team to Bridget the hyperscaler requirements to engineering deliverable and take accountability for the final outcome,
• Define technical vision, system specifications, and multi-year roadmaps for DWDM solutions that drive market leadership across Service Provider and Hyperscaler networks.
• Mentor and develop senior engineering talent, encouraging a culture of technical rigor, patent creation, and optical engineering excellence.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelors + 15+ years of related experience, or Masters + 12+ years of related experience, or PhD + 9+ years of related experience in Electrical Engineering, Optical Engineering, Physics, Telecommunications, or a related technical rigor.
• 15+ years of hands-on experience in Optical DWDM Systems: Extensive domain expertise in DWDM line system design, ROADM architectures (CDC, Flex-Grid, WSS), coherent optics, optical amplification (EDFA, Raman), and optical link budget/impairment modeling (OSNR, CD, PMD, nonlinearities).
• Experience crafting technical strategy, making critical architectural decisions, and developing product roadmaps for sophisticated optical transport platforms.
• Experience integrating hardware, embedded software, optical planning tools, and optical physical-layer control into carrier-grade and hyperscale production environments.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior experience guiding engineering teams and interacting directly with Tier-1 Service Provider and Hyperscaler optical architects to tackle large-scale DWDM deployment challenges.
• Consistent track record leading end-to-end delivery of complex optical line systems, transponders/muxponders, or open optical platforms from concept to commercial deployment.
• Deep knowledge of modern optical network modeling, automated power/gain equalization algorithms, and optical performance monitoring.
• Active contributor to or recognized leadership in optical standards bodies and consortia (Open ROADM MSA, OIF, ITU-T SG15, or TIP Open Optical).
• Strong multitasking, multi-functional communication, and technical leadership skills in a fast-paced product development environment.