Job Description

Software Engineering Technical Leader

Cisco Security Business Group (SBG) is looking for a Software Engineering Technical Leader in a customer-facing role that

focuses on technical leadership, two-way advocacy, and expertise across our security portfolio. This role combines deep

networking and security knowledge with the ability to represent engineering to customers and customers to engineering.

Cisco offers a comprehensive end-to-end security portfolio covering on-premises, cloud, on-device, and hybrid environments -

including VPN, zero trust, web inspection in the cloud, firewall, CASB, and DLP. This flexibility allows customers to select

solutions tailored to their needs and transition seamlessly as requirements evolve.

Location

Japan-based role. You work from Japan, aligned to Japanese enterprise customers and their operating hours, with regular

coordination across global engineering teams.

Role

Two-way technical liaison between large Japanese enterprise customers and our English-speaking engineering organization.

You operate from both viewpoints: represent engineering to the customer, and represent the customer in engineering

discussions - with strong customer advocacy at the center. You own complex escalations and translate requirements, RCAs,

and technical decisions Japanese <-> English without losing context on either side.

Two-way liaison

- To the customer: explain engineering findings, root causes, workarounds, fix timelines, and product constraints in clear

Japanese - aligned with what engineering actually intends to deliver.

- To engineering: carry customer environment context, business impact, operational constraints, and requirements in clear

English - so fixes and designs reflect real production needs.

- Balance both sides under escalation: set realistic expectations with the customer while giving engineering accurate,

reproducible evidence.

- Advocate strongly for the customer: push for timely resolution, clear communication, and outcomes that protect their

production environment - without overstating issues to engineering.

Key responsibilities

- Lead L3/L4 troubleshooting across VPN, zero trust access, web inspection in the cloud, CASB, DLP, firewall policy, and

hybrid cloud deployments.

- Perform packet capture and packet analysis; use deep packet inspection context to isolate connectivity, performance, and

policy issues (IPsec tunnels, IPv4/IPv6, DNS, TLS/SNI, routing, NAT, IP pools).

- Drive proactive account health: capacity, upgrade readiness, config/policy drift, and repeat-incident prevention.

- Capture customer configurations and run daily regression checks to confirm everything is working as intended - surfacing

issues before they affect the customer environment.

- Build clean escalations for engineering - timeline, impact, repro, logs, pcaps, redacted configs - and translate outcomes

back to the customer.

- Use AI-assisted log analysis with strong judgment; don't ship unverified conclusions to either side.

- Script (Bash/Python) for diagnostics, health checks, and lab reproduction.

- Mentor junior liaison engineers on two-way communication and technical depth.

Minimum qualifications

Our mission: make security management easy, reliable, and effective for our customers.

Values: "Being kinder than necessary" | "Learning together" | "Engineering the business" | Celebrating diversity of perspectives

Cisco Confidential Page 1/2 Cisco Security Business Group (SBG)

Software Engineering Technical Leader

- Fluent Japanese and English - equally credible presenting engineering updates to customers and customer context to

engineering.

- Proven ability to advocate both viewpoints: customer urgency and engineering feasibility, without distorting either. Strong

customer advocacy is core to this role.

- 10+ years in networking/security with direct customer ownership.

- Strong TCP/IP (IPv4/IPv6), DNS, routing, IPsec tunnels, TLS, and cloud networking (AWS).

- Hands-on Kubernetes operations: scaling, connectivity, basic cluster troubleshooting.

- Packet capture/analysis (Wireshark/tcpdump or equivalent) and comfort with DPI-related failure modes (decryption,

pinning, fragmentation, MTU).

- Experience across VPN, zero trust, web inspection in the cloud, CASB, DLP, and firewall policy.

- Bash; Python a plus.

Preferred qualifications

- Prior experience managing Cisco on-prem and cloud security/networking products in production customer environments.

- Large Japanese enterprise accounts (finance, manufacturing, telco).

- Observability stacks (Grafana, Loki, Prometheus or similar).

A Software Engineering Technical Leader is an experienced, influential technical leader who bridges customers and

engineering in Japan. You combine deep networking troubleshooting, bilingual precision, strong customer advocacy, and calm

judgment under escalation - keeping both sides aligned on next steps.

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.