Program Manager

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Cisco!

Like the networks we build, our team is a broad network of individuals collaborating to change how the world works, lives, plays and learns.

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Program Manager

IronPort® Systems, Inc. is an independent business unit of Cisco Systems. Operating as a part of Cisco’s Security Technology Group, IronPort is a leading provider of anti-spam, anti-virus and anti-spyware appliances for organizations ranging from small businesses to the Global 2000. IronPort product lines utilize SenderBase®, the world’s largest threat detection database, enabling powerful security measures that are easy to deploy and manage.

Responsibilities:

The Program Manager leads cross-functional teams consisting of product management, development, QA, support and operations personnel to define, build and launch IronPort software and appliance products into the marketplace. The successful candidate will have a unique blend of technical knowledge and exceptional communication and problem-solving skills. He or she must also be able to balance business needs against the ability to deliver in order to consistently define and deliver against program schedule, feature and cost goals.

• Lead software product core teams from definition through launch.
• Develop and manage cross-functional program schedules; identify risks, manage scope and resource changes, and monitor progress against plan.
• Identify, escalate and drive resolution of issues that affect program schedule and feature commitments.
• Communicate program status to management and executives on a regular basis in both formal and informal environments.
• Ensure effective communication within the engineering team and between the project team and other engineering groups.
• Manage multiple concurrent product releases within the program portfolio.
• Contribute to IronPort’s Product Development Lifecycle through process development, documentation and socialization throughout the organization.

Required Experience and Skills:

• BA/BS (business, or engineering preferred), MS/MBA or equivalent desired
• At least 3-5 years in program management with prior experience in product development, product management or a technology environment
• Exceptional team player with the ability to quickly develop and foster cross-functional relationships
• Demonstrated ability to understand, resolve and communicate technical and business issues
• Able to quickly drive, communicate and gain support for decisions in unstructured environments
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills.
• Organized and detail-oriented, with a high level of integrity and reliability
• Experience with server appliances, UNIX, network and/or e-mail applications a plus.
• Specific experience in commercial enterprise software development preferred.

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For immediate consideration, please submit your resume here.

Anti-Spam Software Engineer

It’s an Exciting Time to Work at
Cisco!

Like the networks we build, our team is a broad network of individuals collaborating to change how the world works, lives, plays and learns.

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Software Engineer

IronPort® Systems, Inc. is an independent business unit of Cisco Systems. Operating as a part of Cisco’s Security Technology Group, IronPort is a leading provider of anti-spam, anti-virus and anti-spyware appliances for organizations ranging from small businesses to the Global 2000. IronPort product lines utilize SenderBase®, the world’s largest threat detection database, enabling powerful security measures that are easy to deploy and manage.

We are seeking experienced candidates with a strong software engineering background, a passion for Anti-Spam and deep understanding of Email related technologies to help us develop and sustain the best Anti-Spam solution available.

The role is focused on day-to-day sustaining the efficacy of our Anti-Spam product and also involves a lot of data analysis and problem solving skills, sometimes under customer facing time pressure. The position involves coding that is often less structured than traditional shipping product development. Solid engineering skills are needed to be able to understand down to the code level the diverse suite of data processing technologies and tools involved in our Anti-Spam solution.

The work has a heavy UNIX command line skill requirement and PERL is used extensively to automate certain tasks as well as for ad-hoc data analysis. Working with PERL regular expressions is a staple of daily development. SQL skills are important as the candidate will be often working with data in large relational DB environments. There is often interaction with development engineers in different product areas and with the customer facing teams in support and operations. There is also significant interfacing with remote teams.

The candidate who is going to be most successful and fulfilled in this position is someone with a deep understanding of Email and related technologies and a background in Anti-Spam. Most of all someone with a real passion for solving the spam problem. We want to win this war!

The candidate will ultimately perform in a technical lead capacity to guide and mentor others in the team (including remote/off-shore) as well as be involved with other development groups and help influence the direction of our Anti-Spam technologies.

The ideal candidate will have strength and deep knowledge in PERL, UNIX, Email technologies including Anti Spam, Networking, and SQL, 5+ years of professional experience developing commercial software, experience providing technical leadership for small teams of engineers, strong analytical, problem solving and debugging skills and excellent written and verbal communication skills.

Understanding of multi-byte character encodings, mime types, RFC-2821 and RFC-2822 as well as knowledge of one or more open source and/or commercial anti-spam solutions and of network DNS blacklists and Email reputation systems are all pluses.

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For immediate consideration, please submit your resume here.

Cisco Stops Spam with Increased Performance from Intel

Intel Multi-core Processors Power Next-Generation IronPort Content Security Systems

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.- Sept. 18, 2007 –IronPort Systems, a business unit of Cisco® today announced the use of Multi-core Intel® Xeon® processors to power IronPort’s next generation of email and Web security appliances. IronPort® appliances use AsyncOS, a proprietary operating system that is taking full advantage of the significant performance increases made possible by Intel Multi-core technology. This performance improvement helps enterprises, Internet service providers (ISPs) and smaller organizations stay ahead of the never-ending deluge of spam e-mail.

Spam, Spam, Spam, and More Spam
According to IronPort's SenderBase, world's first and largest email traffic monitoring service, the volume of spam has been roughly doubling every year, with no end in sight. As of August 2007, the IronPort business unit measured an 18 percent month-over-month increase in spam volume. It is estimated that more than 90 percent of all email is spam. More than 80 percent of spam comes from infected “zombie” computers, typically in consumer broadband networks. As spam filters become more effective and more widely deployed, a spammer simply sends more messages with the hope that enough will get through spam filters to make the spammer’s business profitable.

Spam Gets Smarter
In addition to the brute-force tactic of doubling spam volumes year-over-year, spammers have adopted a variety of techniques to bypass traditional filters. Spammers have migrated from simple text messages to HTML messages to image-based spam. The latest variant is known as attachment spam, where spam messages are embedded into popular attachment types such as Adobe PDF or Microsoft Excel files. This poses additional burdens for spam filters because the average spam message size has increased from approximately 3 kilobytes Kbytes in 2005 to 40 kilobytes in 2007. Not only are the messages larger, but they also require much more computer processing at the perimeter to interpret the new attachments and distinguish spam from legitimate mail. The combination of exponential growth in message volumes coupled with larger messages and more required processing per message has caused many traditional anti-spam systems to struggle to keep up—these end users will see more spam getting past the filters and into their inbox, and may experience delays in sending and receiving mail.

Staying in Front
The new generation of email security appliances from IronPort harnesses the power of Multi-core Intel Xeon processors to stay in front of new spammer tactics. The IronPort X1050 uses dual Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor 5300 series. The IronPort AsyncOS operating system is able to take full advantage of all eight cores, yielding system throughput approximately 800 percent greater than a comparable single-core appliance. This increase in processing power allows the IronPort appliance not only to process more spam messages, but also to run more sophisticated rules and analysis to thwart the latest spam techniques.

The combination of IronPort software and Intel's advanced hardware result in systems that have the capacity and capability to stay ahead of surging spam.

Available Now
IronPort X1050 and all multi-core systems are available now. Visit http://ironport.com/products/ironport_x1050.html for more details.

About IronPort Systems

IronPort Systems, headquartered in San Bruno, California, is a business unit of Cisco Systems, Inc.. IronPort Systems is the leading provider of anti-spam, anti-virus and anti-spyware appliances for organizations ranging from small businesses to the Global 2000. IronPort appliances utilize SenderBase®, the world's largest email and Web threat detection network and database. IronPort products are innovative and easy-to-use – providing breakthrough performance and playing a mission-critical role in a company's network infrastructure. To learn more about IronPort Systems products and services, please visit: http://www.ironport.com/.

About Cisco Systems

Cisco, (NASDAQ: CSCO), is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com.

Cisco, Cisco Systems, and the Cisco Systems logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and certain other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company. This document is Cisco Public Information.

Software Engineer / Application Engineer

It’s an Exciting Time to Work at
Cisco!

Like the networks we build, our team is a broad network of individuals collaborating to change how the world works, lives, plays and learns.

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Software Engineer / Application Engineer

IronPort Systems Platform Engineering team is looking for software engineering talent and experience to participate in the ongoing development efforts for its Security Appliances.

Job Description:

The Application Engineering team at IronPort has the unique opportunity to gain exposure to all parts of the IronPort technology suite and collaborate with key departments on a daily basis, including Engineering and Customer Support. This position requires extremely strong problem solving skills and the technical knowledge to perform advanced debugging and develop out-of-the box solutions to solve real world customer problems. The AE group is expected to debug and develop software written in a variety of different languages. The AE position requires an individual who is comfortable communicating technical concepts in an easy-to-understand manner, who enjoys working with cross-functional teams, and who has the strong desire to teach and learn new technical skills.

Primary Responsibilities:
• Be the engineering focal point for resolving customer issues
• Develop custom tools to enhance productivity and solve challenging problems
• Proactively address customer concerns and prevent problems from arising
• Write specifications, design, and implement applications code for use in customer environments
• Mentor others through one on one and formal training

Required Experience and Skills:
• Must have 6+ years solid technical experience in a product environment
• Strong knowledge of HTTP & HTTP proxy and caching technology or Enterprise email solutions
• Highly technical knowledge of network architecture and troubleshooting
• Experience with advanced software debugging: (gdb, truss/ktrace, tcpdump, other UNIX utilities)
• Understanding of software development and best practices, including code review and troubleshooting

Desired Experience and Skills:
• Operating system experience: FreeBSD or Linux
• A broad spectrum of programming languages, from machine-level (some assembly) to OO-based languages (Python/Java/C++), and everything in between (C/shell/Perl) • Strong level of understanding of Internet protocols (SMTP, HTTP, DNS, FTP, LDAP, SSH, TLS).
• Socket level programming and debugging
• Prior experience in the email technology or web proxy space is desirable
• Ability to propose design solutions that help improve supportability and debugging

Personal Characteristics:
• Entrepreneurship, Sense of Urgency: Candidate will possess a high energy level which allows them to react to situations quickly and decisively, possessing self confidence to be assertive when taking a position, not afraid to make decisions.
• Indomitable work ethic: Candidate can reject setbacks and enthusiastically persists until ambitious goals are achieved. The successful candidate will be resourceful and innovative at tackling complex challenges in a timely matter.
• Flexible and adaptable: Candidate should be able to switch gears in various high-stress situations and apply themselves to quickly learning new technologies and adopting new methodologies.
• Attention to detail: Candidate must live by the mantra of “the devil is in the details” and will take great pride in getting it right.
• Accountability: Candidate should be a results-oriented team player who leads by example, holds self accountable for performance, takes absolute ownership, and champions all aspects of customer and product initiatives.
• Problem solver: Candidate should be a strong, analytical problem solver with a common sense and practical solutions orientation
• “The Customer Comes First” Attitude: Candidate will demonstrate passionate commitment to the customer and to product quality. Champions the product and the customer’s needs and implements a model of continuous improvement in both company goals and project-related task.

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For immediate consideration, please submit your resume here.