Senior FPGA Engineer

The application window is expected to close on: 12/04/2026This role requires the employee to work onsite from the San Jose, CA location.

Meet Your team: The Network Hardware Engineering group (NHE) creates innovative hardware platforms central to the AI era, powering Cisco’s core Switching, Routing, and Wireless products for customers globally. These are cloud-enhanced systems powered by specialized Cisco Silicon One ASICs. These high-bandwidth networking switches deliver performance and functionality that scale to meet the needs of future large Data Centers and AI Clusters.

We are a close-knit, creative, and multi-skilled team where each person is unique, but where we bring our talents together to design complex next generation Data Center switching products. Every team member is empowered to share their ideas and drive meaningful outcomes.

Your Impact: FPGA Engineers serve a range of roles at Cisco, from IP creators and architects, to solution integrators, going from concept to production, guiding in solution verification, and ensuring that our products meet Cisco and Industry quality standards.

• Drive innovation includes but not limited to FPGA design, RTL development (Verilog/SystemVerilog), FPGA architecture, synthesis, timing closure, simulation, verification, and hardware lab debugging.
• Work cross-functionally with system designers, diagnostics engineers, customer escalation engineers, and external vendors to ensure robust test methodology and timely issue mitigation, resulting in high product quality and enabling next generation solutions.
• Work independently using best practices, with minimal guidance and direction

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering with 7+ years of relevant experience or master’s degree in electrical engineering with 4 + years of relevant experience
• Experience in full-lifecycle FPGA design.
• Experience writing structured, reusable, and optimized Verilog
• Expertise with vendor toolchains, such as Vivado, Quartus or Libero
• Experience with timing closure and writing timing constraints
• Experience with lab work using tools such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, programming dongles and their SW apps

Preferred Qualifications:

• Comfortable working in a Linux environment
• Experience with scripting languages - shell, python, Tcl etc.
• Experience writing test benches or running simulations
• Has worked with more than one FPGA vendor
• Previous experience with schematic design or system design

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 $154,900.00 to $225,300.00 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: $154,900.00 - $259,100.00 Non-Metro New York state & Washington state: $136,500.00 - $228,300.00

• 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.