Senior Software Development Engineer Jobs in San Jose, CA

The application window is expected to close on: 11/29/2026This is a remote position working from anywhere in the USA.

Meet the Team

Isovalent, now part of Cisco, is the company founded by the creators of Cilium and eBPF. Cisco Isovalent is building the next generation of products for securing workloads and AI infrastructure using advanced technologies across Linux and Windows.
Our software agent team builds high-performance, secure, and lightweight software agents that run across Unix, Linux, and Windows environments and multiple architectures, including aarch64, x86_64, s390x, ppc64_le, and SPARC. These agents operate across traditional and modern workloads in on-premises and cloud environments, including virtual machines and major container orchestration platforms.
Our agents collect rich information about workloads, including network traffic and system activities such as processes, users, and file access. They enforce network policies from a central controller, monitor and protect container-based deployments, and provide runtime security capabilities designed to mitigate high-severity vulnerabilities.
You will be an integral member of the software agent team and work closely with software engineers and cross-functional teams throughout the product development lifecycle, from initial design and development through testing and deployment into production environments.

Your Impact

As a Software Development Test Engineer, you will define, design, and develop testing strategies, frameworks, automation, and environments that continuously measure and improve the quality of Cisco Isovalent's software agents.
You will build testing capabilities designed to operate continuously and over extended periods of time, helping identify functional, performance, reliability, and integration issues before they affect production environments. You will develop automated testing approaches for software operating across operating systems, architectures, virtual machines, containers, and cloud environments.
You will work closely with software engineers throughout the development lifecycle to understand new capabilities, define appropriate testing strategies, identify defects, and improve overall product quality. Your work will help ensure the reliability and security of software providing workload visibility, network policy enforcement, container protection, and runtime security at scale.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and develop testing strategies, frameworks, automation, and environments for software agents across Unix, Linux, and Windows platforms.
• Design automated tests that continuously evaluate software functionality, reliability, performance, and quality over extended periods of time.
• Build and maintain automated testing infrastructure for virtual machines, containers, and cloud-based environments.
• Develop testing approaches for software agents that collect workload and network information, enforce network policies, protect containerized environments, and provide runtime security capabilities.
• Integrate automated testing into the software development and product delivery lifecycle.
• Analyze test results, identify software defects and reliability issues, and collaborate with engineering teams to troubleshoot and resolve problems.
• Collaborate with software engineers and cross-functional teams from product conceptualization through production deployment.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field with 5+ years of relevant experience, or a Master's degree with 3+ years of relevant experience.
• Experience testing complex software products or systems.
• Experience with Kubernetes
• Experience developing or implementing automated software testing.
• Experience working across the software development lifecycle and shipping software products into production.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience designing and developing complex software testing frameworks, strategies, or infrastructure.
• Experience with OpenShift and Rancher.
• Experience with Terraform or other infrastructure automation technologies.
• Experience testing software across virtual machines, containers, cloud, or distributed environments.
• Knowledge of runtime security concepts.
• Knowledge of host-based firewall concepts.
• Experience programming in Golang.
• Experience with continuous testing, long-running reliability testing, or automated performance testing.
• Experience working in agile development environments and collaborating closely with software engineering teams.

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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:

The starting salary range posted for this position is $167,700.00 to $245,200.00 and reflects the projected salary range for new hires in this position in U.S. and/or Canada locations, not including incentive compensation*, equity, or benefits.
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.

The applicable full salary ranges for this position, by specific state, are listed below:

New York City Metro Area:
$167,700.00 - $282,000.00

Non-Metro New York state& Washington state:
$149,100.00 - $250,900.00

• 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.