Staff Software Engineer

Meet the Team     The   Splunk Metadata   Catalog   (MDC)   team is part of the core Splunk Platform organization. We are building a high-scale   Knowledge Graph   that empowers Splunk users to discover data assets effortlessly, map complex relationships, and trace data lineage across diverse ecosystems.     You will join a fast-paced, high-impact team pioneering foundational technology central to the   Cisco Data Fabric   strategy. As a Staff Engineer, you will shape architectural decisions and build systems that scale across enterprise-grade data platforms.

As a   S taff Software Engineer   on the team, you will:     Drive Architecture & Design:   Lead the technical design, architecture, and implementation of complex, highly scalable features and microservices within the Metadata   Catalog   and Knowledge Graph platform.   Build Scalable Distributed Systems:   Design, build, and   optimize   robust, low-latency, and high-throughput services that handle large-scale graph relationships and data lineage queries.   Raise the Engineering Bar:   Champion engineering best practices, design reviews, code quality, and a robust   Developer Owned Quality   mindset across the team.   Technical Leadership & Mentorship:   Guide, mentor, and coach mid-level and early-career engineers, fostering technical growth and operational rigor.   Cross-Functional Collaboration:   Partner closely with Product Managers, Architects, SREs, and peer engineering teams across Cisco Data Fabric to deliver unified solutions.   Operational Excellence:   Own services in production,   establishing   observability standards, SLOs/SLAs, performance benchmarks, and participating in on-call rotations and post-incident reviews.

Education & Experience:   Bachelor's   in computer science / engineering + 8 years of related experience, or Masters + 6 years of related experience, or PhD + 3 years of related experience   Distributed Systems & Cloud:   Proven   track record   of designing, building, and deploying enterprise-grade distributed systems and cloud-native microservices in production (AWS, Azure, or GCP).   Core Programming:   Advanced   proficiency   with strong debugging and system-level programming skills in an object-oriented or systems language (e.g.,   Go, Java, or C++ ).   Containers & Orchestration:   Strong hands-on experience with containerization and orchestration platforms ( Docker, Kubernetes ).   CI/CD & DevOps:   Deep experience with modern CI/CD pipelines, automated testing frameworks, and infrastructure-as-code practices in an Agile environment.   Engineering Fundamentals:   Strong mastery of data structures, algorithms, concurrency, system design, and database principles.

Graph Technologies:   Direct experience working with graph databases ( Neo4j, AWS Neptune, Apache AGE,   ArangoDB ) or query languages/frameworks ( Cypher, Gremlin,   GraphQL , RDF/SPARQL ).   Metadata & Lineage Systems:   Background building metadata   catalogs , data governance tools, schema registries, or data lineage platforms.   Big Data & Streaming:   Familiarity with high-throughput streaming and data processing systems (e.g.,   Apache Kafka, Apache Flink, Apache Spark ).   Observability & Reliability:   Experience   establishing   observability metrics, tracing (e.g.,   OpenTelemetry , Prometheus), and resilience patterns for mission-critical cloud services.   Communication & Influence:   Excellent verbal and written communication skills with the ability to articulate complex technical trade-offs to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.   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