Hardware Engineering Technical Leader

Cisco • Austin, TX

2d

About The Position

Cisco Hardware Engineers develop and work with Next Generation Technology to build Cisco Hardware products keeping in mind the user experience and in accordance with IEEE standards, and industry best practices.
Meet the Team
Join our high-impact Systems & Optics (SaO) team within Cisco’s Common Hardware Group (CHG), providing essential support across key verticals including SP Routing, Enterprise Routing, and Switching. Our team is a foundational partner across CHG—driving innovation, advancing design reliability, and enabling scalable hardware solutions that power Cisco’s most critical products.
Your Impact
You will help shape next-generation system technologies by driving advanced simulation, experimental validation, and cross-functional optimization. Working closely with System Architects, Silicon Design, Supply Chain, Optical and Electrical Design teams, your contributions will directly influence reliability, performance, and manufacturability across programs—while also supporting long-term technology roadmaps and industry leadership. Specific responsibilities include:
Develop and apply novel simulation and experimental methods to enable and optimize advanced hardware technologies. This includes but is not limited to scalable system reliability analysis to predict availability and establish failure rate targets at the system, module and component level.
Partner with team members to design and execute DOEs/test vehicles and computational analyses to establish design guidelines and optimize material, geometry, and architecture.
Drive and evaluate system level tradeoffs across performance (power, thermal, signal-integrity etc.), reliability, manufacturability and cost using modeling and analysis.
Define failure limits and reliability testing requirements through both physical validation and accelerated testing models.
Act as the technical lead on one (or more) projects, coordinating cross‑functional contributors.
Collaborate with academic and industry partners; contribute to standards bodies, conferences, IP development, and peer-reviewed publications.
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!
Why Cisco?
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.
Message to applicants applying to work in the U.S. and/or Canada:
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 of unused sick time carried forward from one calendar year to 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.

Requirements

• MS or PhD in Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Engineering or similar.
• 8+ years of experience in statistical analysis and advanced system level lifetime prediction.
• Strong background in mechanical design, reliability, and simulation of complex structures, with a deep understanding of board-level and system-level failure modes (e.g., warpage, CTE mismatch, delamination, fatigue).
• Proficiency in advanced simulation tools such as Reliasoft Weibull++ and Blocksim, with a track record of validating models through experimental methods.
• Demonstrated expertise in reliability testing, lifetime prediction methodologies, and characterization of real-world use conditions.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with Hyper-scaler architecture systems and tradeoffs
• Knowledge of simulation and data-driven risk assessments to steer architecture choices and long-term reliability
• Track record of contributions to the industry in the field of system reliability analysis and experience with developing system level design for reliability guidelines
• Strong cross-functional collaboration skills with experience working closely with design, manufacturing, and research teams.

Responsibilities

• Develop and apply novel simulation and experimental methods to enable and optimize advanced hardware technologies. This includes but is not limited to scalable system reliability analysis to predict availability and establish failure rate targets at the system, module and component level.
• Partner with team members to design and execute DOEs/test vehicles and computational analyses to establish design guidelines and optimize material, geometry, and architecture.
• Drive and evaluate system level tradeoffs across performance (power, thermal, signal-integrity etc.), reliability, manufacturability and cost using modeling and analysis.
• Define failure limits and reliability testing requirements through both physical validation and accelerated testing models.
• Act as the technical lead on one (or more) projects, coordinating cross‑functional contributors.
• Collaborate with academic and industry partners; contribute to standards bodies, conferences, IP development, and peer-reviewed publications.

Benefits

• 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.
• 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 of unused sick time carried forward from one calendar year to 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.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree