Leader, Machine Learning Engineering at Cisco in Milpitas, CA

Leader, Machine Learning Engineering Location: Milpitas, California, US The application window is expected to close on: 05/29/2026 Job posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or if a sufficient number of applications are received. Who We Are The Cisco’s AI team consists of AI researchers, and software developers who collaborate to build innovative products and platforms for Cisco. We are motivated by tackling unique challenges that arise when connecting people and devices at a world-wide scale. Who You’ll Work With You will join a newly formed, dynamic AI team as one of the core members, and have the opportunity to influence the culture and direction of the growing team. Our team includes AI experts and distributed system experts who work together with our partners in products management, and engineers across a wide variety of other Cisco teams. We are seeking a Software Engineer Technical Leader to join our AI Assistants Team, where you will play a vital role in integrating AI services for our Generative AI Assistant products. Your skills in understanding service operations and architecting/building effective interfaces between service boundaries with the right instrumentation will be essential for the success of our product. Your role will involve understanding the operations of each AI service, designing and building interfaces that seamlessly connect these services, and ensuring the appropriate instrumentation is in place. Your work will be instrumental in delivering a powerful and effective solution to our customers. What You Will Do As a Technical Lead, Backend Engineer for our AI Software & Platform team, you will be responsible for lead the following: Provide technical leadership to all members of the team to guide designs and implementations towards optimal results with regard to reusability, security, reliability, and performance. Collaborate with various stakeholders to design complex systems comprised of multiple ML and non-ML services which meet the highest levels of security, performance, reliability, and scalability while satisfying requirements from within our own team plus those of external integrating teams. Collaborate with disparate teams to understand the operations of AI services and integrate them into our Generative AI products. Design and build effective interfaces between AI services, ensuring smooth communication and data exchange while adhering to security and performance requirements. Implement the right types of instrumentation to monitor and measure the performance, reliability, and security of integrated AI services. Debug integration issues, identifying bottlenecks or errors and implementing solutions to optimize service interactions. Work on performance tuning and optimization of the integrated AI services to ensure efficient and responsive operation. Develop clear and comprehensive documentation for integration processes, interfaces, and instrumentation, facilitating teamwork and knowledge transfer within the team. Collaborate closely with AI engineers, data scientists, and security experts to ensure smooth integration of AI services into the products. Ensure that integrated AI services meet security and compliance standards, working closely with the security team to implement necessary measures. Basic Qualifications 8+ years experience as a Backend Engineer with expertise in integrating complex services. 8+ years experience writing code in Python, Java, or Go. BA / BS degree with 10+ years of experience (or) MS degree with 8+ years of experience as a software development engineer Preferred Qualifications Experience in AI service operations, including Generative AI, and the ability to design and build interfaces between them. Understanding of GenAI frameworks and orchestrators like LangChain, Llamalndex, Semantic Kernel or AutoGen. Foundation in data structures and algorithms. Experience with instrumentation and monitoring tools for measuring service performance. Knowledge of compliance standards. 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 $250,200.00 to $325,000.00 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: $250,200.00 - $373,700.00 Non-Metro New York state & Washington state: $228,400.00 - $332,600.00 * 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.