Senior Engineer I, Smart Switch Software Development

About the Role

NETGEAR has been pioneering advanced networking technology since 1996, delivering innovative products that connect people to the internet, power businesses, and enable digital experiences. Our Smart Switch product line serves small-to-medium businesses and enterprises worldwide, offering advanced L2/L3 managed switching with cloud-based management through NETGEAR Insight. We are building a new engineering center in Chennai to drive the next generation of our smart switch firmware platform.

We are looking for a Senior Engineer I to join our Smart Switch firmware team in Chennai. You will be a technical anchor for the team - designing, developing, and maintaining embedded Linux firmware for NETGEAR's smart switch product families spanning 20+ SKUs across multiple hardware platforms.

This role sits at the intersection of hardware and software: you will work with switch ASIC SDKs, implement and optimize L2/L3 networking protocols, develop kernel modules, and ensure production-quality firmware for ARM64/MIPS-based networking devices. You will collaborate daily with the various engineering teams and have significant ownership over critical platform subsystems.

As the industry shifts toward agentic engineering - where engineers orchestrate AI coding agents to handle implementation while focusing their own expertise on architecture, system design, and validation - we expect this role to embrace AI-augmented workflows as a core part of daily development.

This is a high-impact role for someone who thrives on solving deep technical problems in embedded networking systems and leverages AI tools to amplify their productivity.

What You'll Do

Platform & Architecture: Own and evolve the hardware abstraction layer (HAL) that bridges the switch ASIC SDK with application-layer software. Design and implement kernel modules for platform services including board support, network drivers, and hardware initialization.

Protocol Development: Implement, debug, and optimize L2/L3 protocol state machines (STP, IGMP snooping, LLDP, LACP, 802.1X, GVRP, DAI) as kernel modules, ensuring conformance with IEEE and IETF standards.

Stacking & Distributed Systems: Contribute to the multi-unit stacking feature set - topology management, member election, cross-unit configuration synchronization, firmware upgrade coordination, and hot-swap support.

Cross-Platform Delivery: Develop and maintain firmware across multiple product families (ARM64 and MIPS architectures), coordinating changes across shared codebases to ensure consistency.

Code Quality & Reviews: Conduct thorough code reviews, define coding standards for the team, and champion best practices in embedded C development. Identify and resolve performance bottlenecks, memory leaks, and race conditions.

Collaboration: Work closely with the various engineering teams across time zones. Participate in architecture discussions, design reviews, and release planning. Mentor junior engineers on the Chennai team.

Build & Release: Maintain and improve the cross-compilation build system (GNU Make, Docker). Support release engineering processes including image generation, debug builds, and OSS compliance (SBOM).

AI-Augmented Development: Leverage AI coding agents (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot) as part of your daily workflow - for code generation, code review, debugging assistance, and rapid prototyping. Guide the team in adopting agentic engineering practices where AI agents handle routine implementation tasks while you focus on architecture, validation, and system-level thinking.

Requirements

B.Tech/B.E. in Computer Science, Electronics, or a related field.

8+ years of professional experience in embedded software development, with at least 3 years focused on networking or telecommunications.

Strong proficiency in C programming for embedded Linux systems (kernel modules, user-space daemons, shared libraries).

Hands-on experience with L2/L3 networking protocols - at minimum two of: STP/RSTP/MSTP, IGMP snooping, LLDP, LACP, 802.1X, VLANs.

Experience developing or maintaining Linux kernel modules (character devices, netfilter hooks, or network drivers).

Familiarity with ARM64 or MIPS cross-compilation toolchains and embedded Linux build systems (Buildroot, OpenWrt, Yocto, or custom Makefile-based).

Strong debugging skills - GDB, strace, kernel oops/panic analysis, packet capture with tcpdump or Wireshark.

Demonstrated daily use of AI coding agents or AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Cline) to accelerate development, debugging, and code review workflows.

Direct experience with switch ASIC SDKs (Realtek, Broadcom, Marvell, or similar).

Experience with containerized networking functions or DPDK in embedded environments.

Knowledge of YANG data models and NETCONF/RESTCONF for network management.

Experience with functional test frameworks for networking control plane and data plane validation.