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Hardware System and Board Failure Analysis Tech Lead (Cisco Silicon One)

Cisco
Milpitas, CA Full Time
POSTED ON 4/9/2026
AVAILABLE BEFORE 5/8/2026

This role is onsite 5 days a week in Milpitas. Candidates must be located in the Bay Area or open to relocation to the Bay Area.


Meet the Team

We are a close-knit team focused on hardware quality and failure analysis, within a larger hardware engineering organization which designs, implements, and delivers leading Switching and Routing products. The Common Hardware Group (CHG) delivers the silicon, optics, and hardware platforms for Cisco's core Switching, Routing, and Wireless products. We design the networking hardware for Enterprises and Service Providers of various sizes, the Public Sector, and Non-Profit Organizations across the world.


Cisco Silicon One (#CiscoSiliconOne) is the only unifying silicon architecture in the market that enables customers to deploy the best-of-breed silicon from Top of Rack (TOR) switches all the way through web scale data centers and across service provider, enterprise networks, and data centers with a fully unified routing and switching portfolio.


Your Impact

  • In this highly visible role as Technical Leader, Hardware System and Board Failure Analysis, you will lead failure analysis effort on switches and routers. You have a passion for technical failure investigations, hardware root cause analysis and quality engineering.
  • Possess an in-depth knowledge of networking products and high speed serdes interfaces.
  • Conduct in-depth root cause analysis, and determination of contributing factors and corrective actions for improvement of field product quality. Y
  • Perform fault reproduction, troubleshooting, system characterization, and root cause analysis of product issues, while ensuring efficient bug tracking and resolution.
  • Prepare comprehensive technical reports for customers and Cisco leadership detailing findings from product failure investigations.


Minimum Qualifications

  • Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering or computer engineering or related degree
  • 8 years of experience in hardware board circuit and system design, troubleshooting, and failure analysis
  • 5 years of professional work experience with electrical diagnostics and measurement equipment - oscilloscopes, digital multimeter, Logic Analyzers etc.


Preferred Qualifications

  • Experience with design for high-speed signals with serial transmission technologies
  • Experience with CPUs/embedded CPUs, FPGAs/PLDs and good understanding of control interfaces such as PCIe, MDIO, SPI, I2C
  • Experience with networking hardware product development, troubleshooting and failure analysis, including network traffic generators (Ixia / Spirent etc.)
  • Experience with MS Excel and data collection
  • Familiarity with Python, PERL or similar scripting and execution languages



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 $168,800.00 to $241,200.00 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.

Salary : $168,800 - $241,200

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