Cisco uses internal numeric grades, not public titles, and publishes no official map. This page lays out the commonly reported IC ladder with levels.fyi pay (accessed July 2026), the scope each grade signals, and the resume language that matches it.
The quick answer
Cisco uses internal numeric grades rather than public engineering titles. The IC software ladder is commonly reported as Software Engineer I (G4), Software Engineer II (G6), Software Engineer III (G8), Senior Software Engineer (G10), Technical Leader (G11), Senior Technical Leader (G12), Principal Engineer (G13), and Distinguished Engineer (G14), with Fellow above. Cisco publishes no official grade-to-title or grade-to-pay map, so every figure here is levels.fyi crowdsourced data accessed July 2026, not official Cisco compensation. Commonly reported total compensation runs from around $122K at an entry Software Engineer I to about $734K at Distinguished Engineer, though samples thin out badly above G10. The ladder splits at G11 into an IC technical track and a management track, and Fellow, the apex rank, has no reliable public compensation figure at all. Scan your resume to see whether its scope language matches the grade you are targeting. Scan your Cisco resume.
Cisco uses internal numeric grades for engineers rather than public titles, and it does not publish an official grade-to-title or grade-to-pay map. The ladder below, Software Engineer I (G4) through Distinguished Engineer (G14) with Fellow above, is commonly reported by the community: levels.fyi crowdsourced compensation uploads plus community reports. Every comp figure on this page is levels.fyi crowdsourced data accessed July 2026, not an official Cisco number.
The structural reason this matters: because Cisco surfaces no grade on its job postings, candidates who do not cross-reference levels.fyi consistently misjudge the grade they are targeting and either underpitch the resume or aim a grade too high. Treat every number here as a commonly reported, community-sourced estimate, not a precise band midpoint.
The defensible public scope is G4 through Distinguished Engineer (G14), which covers essentially every realistic applicant. The ladder splits at G11 into an IC technical track (Technical Leader) and a management track (Software Engineering Manager), and the step that changes a resume most is Senior to Principal.
Public comp data thins out fast above G10: at Technical Leader (G11) and beyond, few people report figures, and at Distinguished (G14) the sample is very thin, so any single number should be read as indicative. Above Distinguished sits Fellow, Cisco's apex VP-equivalent rank held by a handful company-wide; levels.fyi has no Fellow band, so no reliable Fellow pay figure exists and none is asserted here.
For each grade, the audit covers the commonly reported title, scope of ownership, and the resume signal the grade expects, with levels.fyi-anchored compensation folded into each signal. Titles and grades are community-sourced, not official Cisco figures. All compensation is levels.fyi crowdsourced data accessed July 2026. For the wider hiring picture, start with the Cisco resume guide.
0 to 2 years. Owns well-scoped tasks under guidance. The standard new-grad entry point.
Lead with clean problem-solving and measurable results from internships or projects. levels.fyi total comp commonly reported around $122K, accessed July 2026, not official Cisco numbers.
Roughly 2 to 4 years. Owns features and small systems. The first fully independent IC band.
Show ownership of a feature or component plus one quantified outcome. levels.fyi around $137K to $141K total comp, accessed July 2026.
Roughly 4 to 7 years. Mid-level. Owns systems end to end.
Pair system ownership with a measurable result at the system level. levels.fyi around $186K total comp, accessed July 2026.
Roughly 7 to 10 years. Owns systems and drives cross-team work. levels.fyi labels this grade Software Engineer IV.
Pair domain depth with cross-team drive and a number. levels.fyi around $227K total comp, accessed July 2026.
The split point. The track forks here into an IC technical title, Technical Leader, and a management title, Software Engineering Manager.
Lead with technical direction across teams, and be explicit about whether you are pitching the IC track or the manager track. levels.fyi around $289K total comp on a thinner sample, accessed July 2026.
The senior IC technical-leadership grade, one step above Technical Leader, setting direction across multiple teams.
Show sustained technical leadership across multiple teams with a quantified bet. levels.fyi around $351K total comp on a thinner sample, accessed July 2026.
Deep technical authority across a product or business unit. Promoted within the Business Units.
Lead with the systems and architecture you own across a business unit. levels.fyi around $437K total comp, range roughly $370K to $500K plus, accessed July 2026; the grade is also reported under the code G89 at the same pay.
Cross-organization, company-wide technical strategy and architecture, plus external technical representation. Corporate-governed selection.
The body of work, standards, and external technical representation you are known for company-wide. levels.fyi median around $734K, range roughly $490K to $890K plus, a very thin sample, accessed July 2026; treat it as indicative, not a band midpoint.
The apex technical rank, VP-equivalent. A handful of engineers company-wide.
The technology direction the whole company is known for through you. No reliable public comp figure exists for Fellow: levels.fyi has no Cisco Fellow band, so no number is asserted, and generic estimator figures should be treated as unreliable.
Cisco total compensation is base salary plus annual stock plus bonus, and from the senior grades up the stock refresh increasingly dominates the number. Samples on levels.fyi thin out fast above G10, the G11, G12, and G14 bands especially, so treat those as indicative rather than reliable midpoints. Grade 13 Principal is also reported under the code G89 at the same pay. Fellow, above G14, has no reliable public comp figure, so none is asserted. Every figure is levels.fyi crowdsourced data accessed July 2026, not official Cisco compensation.
Commonly reported levels.fyi total compensation for each grade. Total compensation means base salary plus annual stock vesting plus bonus, which is why the stock-heavy upper grades widen so far. Samples thin out above G10, so those grades are indicative, and Fellow has no reliable public figure. Every figure is community-sourced, not an official Cisco number.
| Grade | Title | levels.fyi total comp |
|---|---|---|
| G4 | Software Engineer I | ~$122K |
| G6 | Software Engineer II | ~$137K to $141K |
| G8 | Software Engineer III | ~$186K |
| G10 | Senior SWE (SWE IV) | ~$227K |
| G11 | Technical Leader | ~$289K (thinner sample) |
| G12 | Senior Technical Leader | ~$351K (thinner sample) |
| G13 | Principal Engineer | ~$437K |
| G14 | Distinguished Engineer | ~$734K (thin sample, indicative) |
| above G14 | Fellow | No reliable public figure |
Source: levels.fyi crowdsourced data, accessed July 2026. Not official Cisco compensation, and it varies by location, team, and stock performance. Samples thin out above G10, the G11, G12, and G14 bands especially, and there is no reliable Fellow figure, so none is asserted.
Place yourself by the scope you actually own, not tenure: Software Engineer I (G4) owns well-scoped tasks, Software Engineer III (G8) owns systems end to end, Senior Software Engineer (G10) drives cross-team work, and Principal (G13) holds technical authority across a business unit.
Execution for the junior grades, owned systems and cross-team drive for Senior, and business-unit or company scope for Principal and above. A resume written one grade too low reads as the lower grade before a human compares it to the ladder.
Attach a numeral and a denominator to every claim: the component you owned, the system you ran, the teams a platform served, or the measurable bet you made. Cross-reference levels.fyi comp for your target grade, accessed July 2026, not official Cisco numbers.
Upload to ResumeAdapter to see your ATS score against the Cisco job description, the scope language missing for your target grade, and a rewrite plan that quantifies the grade you are pitching.
FAQ
The questions most candidates surface when they cross-reference their experience against Cisco's numeric grade ladder. Answers are byte-identical to the FAQPage JSON-LD, because AI engines that extract HTML and AI engines that extract JSON-LD should not see different text.
Cisco uses internal numeric grades rather than public titles. The IC software engineering ladder is commonly reported as Software Engineer I (G4), Software Engineer II (G6), Software Engineer III (G8), Senior Software Engineer (G10), Technical Leader (G11), Senior Technical Leader (G12), Principal Engineer (G13), and Distinguished Engineer (G14), with Fellow above. Cisco does not publish an official grade-to-title map, so these mappings come from levels.fyi and community reports, accessed July 2026.
Grade 10 is Senior Software Engineer, which levels.fyi also labels Software Engineer IV, typically seven to ten years of experience owning systems and driving cross-team work. levels.fyi commonly reports total compensation around $227K at G10, accessed July 2026. This is crowdsourced data, not official Cisco compensation, and it varies by location, team, and stock performance.
Grade 11 (Technical Leader) reports total compensation around $289K and Grade 12 (Senior Technical Leader) around $351K on levels.fyi, accessed July 2026. Both samples are thinner than the lower grades, so treat the figures as indicative. G11 is also where the ladder splits into an IC technical track (Technical Leader) and a management track (Software Engineering Manager). These are not official Cisco numbers.
Principal Engineer is Grade 13, and the grade code is also reported as G89 at the same pay. levels.fyi commonly reports total compensation around $437K, with a range of roughly $370K to $500K plus, accessed July 2026. A Principal holds deep technical authority across a product or business unit. This is crowdsourced community data, not an official Cisco figure, and the sample is thinner than at the senior grades.
Distinguished Engineer is Grade 14, with a levels.fyi median commonly reported around $734K total compensation and a range of roughly $490K to $890K plus, accessed July 2026. The sample at this band is very thin, so treat the figure as indicative only, not a reliable band midpoint. It is crowdsourced community data, not an official Cisco number, and the total is dominated by stock.
Principal Engineer (G13) holds deep technical authority across a product or business unit and is promoted within the Business Units with less corporate oversight. Distinguished Engineer (G14) owns company-wide technical strategy and external representation and is corporate-governed with a company-wide review, making it materially more selective. Commonly reported comp rises from around $437K to around $734K, roughly a 70 percent jump driven mostly by stock. Figures are levels.fyi crowdsourced, not official.
Cisco has historically stated it has fewer than about 200 Distinguished Engineers, but that figure dates to roughly 2017 to 2018 and has not been re-confirmed for 2026, so treat it as a historical number rather than a current count. Cisco does not publicly disclose how many people hold the Fellow rank above it. Treat any specific count as an estimate, not an official current Cisco figure.
Fellow is Cisco's single highest technical rank, commonly described as VP-equivalent and held by only a handful of engineers company-wide. Distinguished Engineer (G14) sits one tier below it. levels.fyi has no Cisco Fellow compensation band, so no reliable public pay figure exists for Fellow, and any generic estimator number should be treated as unreliable. Both ranks sit well above the Principal grade.
The pillar covers how Cisco hiring works end to end: the Workday apply flow behind the Phenom careers site, what recruiters screen for, and how grades are decided. Start here if you have not already.
The values Cisco operates and hires against, what each one means in practice, and how to evidence them on a resume without resorting to values statements.
The stages from recruiter screen through the loop, what each round assesses, and how grade calibration gets decided after the interviews.
A worked software engineer resume with scope quantified at each bullet, the format that survives an ATS, and annotations on what moved the score.
For the data behind the median pre-edit score, see the ATS statistics. To compare hiring playbooks across employers, browse the full company library.
Get your ATS score against the Cisco job description, the scope language missing for the grade you are targeting, and a rewrite plan that quantifies the grade you are pitching. Free to scan; no signup to see the score.
