Software Engineer - Python , Networking Protocols - 4 to 8 years

Meet the Team:

The Cisco Crosswork Network Controller quality engineering team helps ensure that a highly scalable, microservices-based SDN controller delivers reliable automation for IP transport networks. Crosswork Network Controller brings service and device lifecycle management, telemetry-driven insights, workflow automation, and intent-based closed-loop operations into one integrated solution for multivendor environments. Our team owns service provision and monitoring testing, validating customer-relevant workflows, solution integration, scale, resiliency, upgrades, and release readiness across the platform and its applications. We partner with development, product management, customer-facing, and operations teams to identify risk early, automate repeatable validation, and deliver dependable releases.

Your Impact:

• Plan and execute service provision and monitoring test strategies for Crosswork Network Controller releases, translating customer and solution use cases into comprehensive end-to-end validation.
• Build and maintain Python-based automation for GUI, REST API, platform, network-device, and service workflows to improve coverage and execution efficiency.
• Validate integrated solution behavior across installation and upgrades, device onboarding, service provisioning, topology, telemetry, high availability, scale, and failure recovery.
• Reproduce complex defects, perform root cause analysis, and collaborate with engineering teams to drive timely resolution and prevent regressions.
• Communicate quality status and release risk through clear test plans, execution results, defect analysis, and continuous improvement of CI/CD quality gates.

Minimum Requirements: (Must Have)

• Strong Python automation skills with experience designing and maintaining scalable test frameworks, libraries, and scripts for system and end-to-end validation. Hands-on experience testing REST APIs and JSON-based integrations.
• Strong IP networking fundamentals, including routing protocols, MPLS, Segment Routing, TCP/IP, and L2/L3 VPN services, with the ability to configure network devices, validate control- and data-plane behavior, and troubleshoot multivendor environments.
• Hands-on quality engineering experience designing and executing functional, integration, regression, upgrade, resiliency, scale, and end-to-end tests for distributed network-management or automation products.
• Strong Linux/Unix, API, and platform troubleshooting skills, including log analysis, service-health validation, defect isolation, and release verification across clustered or containerized environments.
• Ability to work in an cross-functional environment, collaborating with developers, product managers, customer-facing teams, and quality engineers to define acceptance criteria, automate workflows, improve coverage, and communicate release risk.

Optional Skills: (Good to have)

• Experience with Cisco Crosswork, Cisco NSO, SR-PCE, model-driven telemetry, NETCONF/YANG, gNMI, SNMP, or related network-automation technologies is a plus.
• Knowledge of Kubernetes or other container platforms, virtualization, CI/CD systems, and test approaches for high availability, performance, scale, and upgrade or migration scenarios.

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.

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