Meet the Team
The Cisco cnBNG Control Plane team builds Cisco's cloud-native Broadband Network Gateway - the carrier-grade subscriber-management brain that runs as microservices on the SMI (Subscriber Microservices Infrastructure) / Kubernetes platform and interworks with IOS-XR, Silicon One-based User Plane Functions (UPFs). We power some of the world's largest residential and business broadband deployments, serving millions of subscribers with strict availability and scale requirements. We value technical depth, automation-first engineering, continuous learning, collaborative problem-solving, and responsible adoption of AI-assisted development practices.
Your Impact
As a Software Engineer on the cnBNG Control Plane, you will own the design, delivery, and end-to-end quality of carrier-grade subscriber-management features in a cloud-native architecture. You will build session-handling, CP-UP separation, redundancy, and scale capabilities that keep millions of subscribers online across Silicon One-based UPFs - and own their unit, integration, system, and scale validation with automation-first practices. You will mentor junior engineers and use modern AI-assisted tools to accelerate development, testing, and debugging. The successful candidate will independently own a significant Control Plane feature area and its unit/integration/system/scale validation and automation, deliver production-quality code and tests, lead sophisticated investigations across CP and Silicon One UPFs, and provide evidence-based release recommendations - while influencing design, mentoring, and using AI-assisted tools responsibly with security and engineering accountability.
- Design, develop, and maintain cnBNG Control Plane microservices (C/C++/Go) on the SMI/Kubernetes platform, interworking with IOS-XR / Silicon One-based User Plane Functions.
- Implement and enhance subscriber-management functionality: PPPoE/IPoE session bring-up, DHCPv4/DHCPv6 (server/proxy/relay), Prefix Delegation, RADIUS/AAA, PAP/CHAP, accounting, Change of Authorization, IPAM, subscriber policy, and QoS.
- Develop and harden CP-UP separation over the State Control Interface - session programming, state download/replay, and reconciliation between the Control Plane and Silicon One UPFs.
- Build features for scale and high availability: cluster upscale, N:M and geo/warm redundancy (SRG), CP-GR switchover, and subscriber-session continuity during CP-UP communication failures.
- Own quality end-to-end: write unit tests and component/integration tests; design and execute system, regression, scale, performance, resiliency, and high-availability tests for your features.
- Develop reusable, scalable test automation (Python; pyATS/Genie or equivalent) and integrate it into CI/CD pipelines and regression suites.
- Build and maintain containerized/virtual/cloud-based test environments (Docker, Kubernetes, SMI) and validate subscriber-scale, traffic, failover, upgrade/rollback, process-restart, and subscriber-churn scenarios.
- Optimize control-plane performance, memory, and convergence for millions of subscribers across large UPF fleets.
- Develop and maintain gRPC/REST APIs and YANG/OpenConfig models, plus CLI and model-driven telemetry for configuration and operational visibility.
- Troubleshoot sophisticated, distributed issues across CP, Silicon One UPFs, and the SMI/Kubernetes stack; drive RCA using logs, traces, core dumps, RADIUS transactions, and telemetry.
- Manage code with Git; participate in code reviews; collaborate with Test Engineering on feature, scale, and HA validation.
- Work with architects, DE/DT leads, and PLM to deliver features across the release lifecycle (BC/CC, AC/EC, DEVELOPING, FCS).
- Actively use approved AI coding assistants and engineering agents for code generation, unit/automation test creation, static analysis, log analysis, defect triage, and documentation - validating AI-generated output responsibly.
Minimum Qualifications (Must-Have)
- Bachelor's or master's degree in Computer Science, Electrical/Computer Engineering, Telecommunications, or a related field.
- Experience in systems/embedded or cloud-native software engineering for networking products.
- Strong programming in C/C++ and/or Go on Linux; Python for test automation and scripting.
- Experience writing unit, integration, system, and scale/performance tests, and building automation (pyATS/Genie or equivalent) integrated into CI/CD and regression pipelines.
- Solid understanding of IP networking and subscriber/broadband protocols: PPPoE, IPoE, DHCPv4/v6, RADIUS/AAA, PPP, L2TP.
- Knowledge of Cisco Silicon One (SiOne) NPU-based User Plane Functions (UPFs) - data-plane/forwarding architecture, CP-to-UPF programming, and how subscriber sessions map to NPU forwarding.
- Cloud-native fundamentals: Docker, Kubernetes, microservices, and service meshes.
- Experience building and consuming gRPC/REST APIs and data models (YANG, protobuf).
- Distributed-systems concepts: high availability, redundancy, state reconciliation, and scale.
- Strong Linux skills; experience with Git, code reviews, debugging, and CI/CD pipelines.
- AI-assisted engineering is a must: use of AI coding assistants (e.g., GitHub Copilot) and a working understanding of generative AI, AI agents, MCP (Model Context Protocol), reusable AI skills, prompt/context management, and responsible validation of AI-generated output.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with BNG/CUPS, CP-UP separation, SRG geo/warm redundancy, or 5G/BNG converged-core architectures.
- Experience with SMI (Subscriber Microservices Infrastructure) or similar cloud-native telco platforms.
- Familiarity with Silicon One platform families (Cisco 8000 / ASR 9000 / NCS) as User Planes.
- Scale/performance characterization and traffic/subscriber-simulation tools (IXIA/Spirent).
- Databases/caching for network state (SQL/NoSQL, key-value stores, etcd); AAA/policy, IPAM at scale, and QoS.
- Telemetry, NETCONF/RESTCONF/gNMI, OpenConfig; Aha/Jira API suites.
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.
Disclaimer
To ensure that we hire the best talent in the right way, we follow a strict hiring process and recently, Cisco has been made aware of fraudulent recruiters claiming to be from the company. Please be advised that any communication from Cisco about careers will:
- be in direct response to an application you have submitted through the company career site
- begin with screening or an interview
- originate from a Cisco email address, and
- be conducted across email, phone, or WebEx
Cisco will never make a job offer without conducting an interview process or ask you for money in any way. If you have been requested to apply for a role or have received an offer from a site other than https://careers.cisco.com or cisco.wd5.myworkday.com, do not provide any personal identifying information, including your Aadhaar or other personal identifying number, birth certificate, banking information, driver's license, or passport.
If you are the target of a recruiting scam, consider filing a report with your local law enforcement authorities. Cisco bears no responsibility, and cannot be held liable, for any claims, damages, expenses, or other inconvenience resulting from or in any way connected to recruiting scams.
