Junior Software Engineer – CloudOps Automation Team

About the Team

CloudOps Automation is a Platform Engineering team focused on making cloud operations safer, simpler, and more efficient.

The team builds automation frameworks, tools, and reusable components that help infrastructure, platform, and engineering teams turn manual runbooks into reliable automated workflows. The goal is not only to reduce manual work, but also to reduce toil, lower cognitive load, improve operational reliability, and make common operational processes more secure and predictable.

Our stack includes Python, Bash, Git, Argo/workflow orchestration, and some Go.

Role

This role is for a Junior Software Engineer interested in software development, automation, cloud operations, and Platform Engineering.

The work includes building and maintaining automation components, improving existing tools, writing tests, debugging issues, and contributing to documentation. The engineer will work with more experienced team members and collaborate with teams that own operational workflows.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain automation tools, libraries, and workflow components.
• Help convert manual operational runbooks into safe, repeatable automated workflows.
• Write clean, tested code, mainly in Python.
• Use Git, code reviews, and standard development practices.
• Debug and troubleshoot automation issues.
• Contribute to documentation, guides, examples, and troubleshooting materials.
• Help improve automation quality, reliability, security, and ease of use.
• Collaborate with workflow owners and platform teams to understand operational problems and design practical solutions.

Minimum Qualifications

• Motivation to learn and improve as a software engineer.
• Knowledge of Python or another modern programming language.
• Basic experience with Git.
• Understanding of software development fundamentals: coding, debugging, testing, and documentation.
• Familiarity with automated tests, such as unit, functional, or integration tests.
• Basic Linux or command-line experience.
• Good problem-solving and communication skills.
• Bachelor’s degree with 2 years of related experience, Master’s degree with 0 years of related experience, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bash scripting experience.
• Familiarity with Go.
• Exposure to Argo Workflows or similar workflow orchestration tools.
• Interest in cloud operations, infrastructure automation, platform engineering, or SRE.
• Experience with APIs, CLI tools, YAML/JSON, or CI/CD pipelines.
• Interest in improving security, reliability, and developer/operator experience through automation.

What Makes This Role Interesting

This role works on practical Platform Engineering problems. The team builds reusable tools and standards that help other teams operate cloud systems with less toil, less manual effort, lower cognitive load, and better security.

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.