Distinguished Machine Learning Engineer

The application window is expected to close on: 11/22/2026

This is a hybrid role based out of Cisco's San Jose office.

Meet the team

Cisco’s AI Software & Platform team (AISWP) is the heartbeat of Cisco’s AI transformation. We aren't just integrating AI; we are building the infrastructure that defines how the internet is managed. As a Distinguished Machine Learning Engineer, you will have a seat at the table where the future of autonomous, agentic networking is designed. Working directly alongside senior executive leadership, you will lead the architecture for Cisco Cloud Control and Canvas—the cornerstone platforms that are shifting Cisco from a collection of products to a unified, AI-driven Agentic Ops powerhouse. This is a rare opportunity to move the needle on a global scale, solving high-stakes challenges that directly impact our customers' ability to run their most critical infrastructure.

Your Impact

You will be the bridge between cutting-edge AI research and massive-scale engineering. You will collaborate with our most senior AI researchers, distributed systems architects, and product visionaries to turn abstract technical possibilities into production reality. You will serve as the primary technical advocate, driving alignment across Cisco’s broad engineering organization to ensure our AI services are secure, scalable, and genuinely transformative.

As a Distinguished Machine Learning Engineer, you will own the technical trajectory of our platform. Your influence will be felt in every layer of the stack, from model context strategies to the security guardrails that keep customer production environments safe.

• Define and implement multi-year technical strategies for agentic systems, ensuring unified architectural alignment across Cisco’s broad product portfolio and global engineering organizations.

• Serve as the primary internal and external technical authority, negotiating critical architectural decisions with senior executives and driving the adoption of industry standards, such as the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

• Architect complex systems that use hybrid and graph-based retrieval, creating unique, scalable solutions for cross-product telemetry, root cause analysis, and automated remediation.

• Establish the company-wide standards for AI safety, observability, and compliance, ensuring that all agent-based autonomous actions remain measurable, auditable, and resilient to production risks.

• Cultivate a high-performance engineering culture by mentoring Principal and Senior-level leaders, fostering innovation, and representing Cisco’s technical excellence at industry forums, standards bodies, and global conferences.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or a related field with 17+ years of total software engineering experience; Master's with 14+ years; or PhD with 10+ years.

• 5+ years of experience operating at a "Principal" level or above, with documented proof of influencing technical strategy across at least 3 distinct product organizations.

• 2+ years of experience in the design, development, and production-level deployment of LLM-based systems serving at least 10,000+ daily active users or processing 500+ requests per second.

• Successfully architected and shipped at least 1 production-grade multi-agent system using frameworks such as LangGraph, Temporal, or an equivalent complex state-machine stack.

• 10+ years of deep experience writing production-grade code in Go, Python, or Rust, specifically within hyperscale environments (e.g., managing architectures supporting 100+ microservices or petabyte-scale data pipelines).

• Experience designing and implementing at least 3 critical safety or observability features in a production environment (e.g., indirect prompt injection defense, human-in-the-loop gates, or automated rollbacks).

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience establishing AI governance frameworks (e.g., NIST AI RMF, EU AI Act) and ensuring enterprise compliance across the model lifecycle.

• Expertise in advanced post-training methodologies, including reinforcement learning from verifiable rewards (RLHF/DPO) and supervised fine-tuning.

• Deep knowledge of inference serving optimizations, such as KV/prefix caching, continuous batching, and model routing strategies.

• Contributions to the external technical community, including published research, patents, or active leadership roles in industry open-source standards bodies.

• Experience in AIOps or network management, specifically in creating correlated context across disparate network and cloud infrastructure layers.

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. 

Message to applicants applying to work in the U.S. and/or Canada:

The starting salary range posted for this position is $342,700.00 to $433,400.00 and reflects the projected salary range for new hires in this position in U.S. and/or Canada locations, not including incentive compensation*, equity, or benefits.

Individual pay is determined by the candidate's hiring location, market conditions, job-related skillset, experience, qualifications, education, certifications, and/or training. The full salary range for certain locations is listed below. For locations not listed below, the recruiter can share more details about compensation for the role in your location during the hiring process.

U.S. employees are offered benefits, subject to Cisco’s plan eligibility rules, which include medical, dental and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution, paid parental leave, short and long-term disability coverage, and basic life insurance. Please see the Cisco careers site to discover more benefits and perks.  Employees may be eligible to receive grants of Cisco restricted stock units, which vest following continued employment with Cisco for defined periods of time.

U.S. employees are eligible for paid time away as described below, subject to Cisco’s policies:

• 10 paid holidays per full calendar year, plus 1 floating holiday for non-exempt employees

• 1 paid day off for employee’s birthday, paid year-end holiday shutdown, and 4 paid days off for personal wellness determined by Cisco

• Non-exempt employees** receive 16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year, accrued at rate of 4.92 hours per pay period for full-time employees

• Exempt employees participate in Cisco’s flexible vacation time off program, which has no defined limit on how much vacation time eligible employees may use (subject to availability and some business limitations)

• 80 hours of sick time off provided on hire date and each January 1st thereafter, and up to 80 hours of unused sick time carried forward from one calendar year to the next

• Additional paid time away may be requested to deal with critical or emergency issues for family members

• Optional 10 paid days per full calendar year to volunteer

For non-sales roles, employees are also eligible to earn annual bonuses subject to Cisco’s policies.

Employees on sales plans earn performance-based incentive pay on top of their base salary, which is split between quota and non-quota components, subject to the applicable Cisco plan. For quota-based incentive pay, Cisco typically pays as follows:

• .75% of incentive target for each 1% of revenue attainment up to 50% of quota;

• 1.5% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 50% and 75%;

• 1% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 75% and 100%; and

• Once performance exceeds 100% attainment, incentive rates are at or above 1% for each 1% of attainment with no cap on incentive compensation.

For non-quota-based sales performance elements such as strategic sales objectives, Cisco may pay 0% up to 125% of target. Cisco sales plans do not have a minimum threshold of performance for sales incentive compensation to be paid.

The applicable full salary ranges for this position, by specific state, are listed below:

New York City Metro Area:

$342,700.00 - $498,400.00

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:

$304,900.00 - $443,500.00

* For quota-based sales roles on Cisco’s sales plan, the ranges provided in this posting include base pay and sales target incentive compensation combined.

** Employees in Illinois, whether exempt or non-exempt, will participate in a unique time off program to meet local requirements.