Software Engineer

Location: RTP, North Carolina, US · Hybrid

The application window is expected to close on: 10/29/2026

Job posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or if a sufficient number of applications are received.

Meet the Team

We run the platform that serves foundational models to Cisco IT. Our Foundational Model Service, gives engineering teams across the company access to small, large language, and embedding models. youWe serve those models on Kubernetes clusters, with Nim, Vllm and other runtimes. Beyond serving, We benchmark, evaluate, monitor, and release new models as improvements and demand warrant. Our customers depend on the platform under a 99.9% uptime SLA, and we build and operate accordingly.

As a Software Engineer on the FMS team you'll keep that platform running and make it easier to run. You'll support model onboarding and releases, take your turn on call, help automate the validation that gates every deployment, and contribute to the monitoring that shows us and our customers how the service is behaving. You'll also apply Agentic solutions to our own operations to catch problems earlier and remediate them automatically.

Your Impact

You'll develop software consistent with Cisco Design Thinking Principles, with simplification and user experience at its core, using secure coding practices, protecting user privacy, and following software development best practices. You'll partner with design, product management, and other engineering teams to build the right solution for our customers. You'll create technical design documentation for the team, contribute to the documentation end users rely on, and debug platform issues both in development and in production.

This is a strong role for a systems or infrastructure engineer who has worked with LLMs, whether through academic coursework or by building and running them on the job, and who understands how inference serving works. We're looking for a self starter who takes on unfamiliar work and grows into it. You'll work with engineers who have built these systems from the ground up. New runtimes and new models arrive frequently, so the platform is always evolving, and you'll develop a deep understanding of developing AI infrastructure, model runtimes, and delivering products at scale. On call is shared across the team.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field with 3 years of related experience; master’s degree with 1 year of related experience; PhD; or equivalent practical work experience.

• Experience developing and operating production services on Kubernetes and Linux, including exposure to GPU based AI infrastructure.

• Hands on experience serving models with vLLM, NVIDIA NIM, Triton, or a comparable inference runtime, including building supporting services.

• Experience leading technical work, mentoring engineers, documenting systems, and supporting critical services through an on call rotation.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience evaluating and benchmarking models to support production release decisions.

• Experience operating GPU workloads with NVIDIA CUDA or AMD ROCm.

• Familiarity with distributed inference, disaggregated serving, KV cache aware routing, capacity planning, or cost optimization.

• Experience fine tuning transformer models or evaluating RAG and agent systems using relevant frameworks.

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 $128,600.00 to $184,900.00 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:

$155,000.00 - $256,000.00

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:

$138,100.00 - $227,900.00

* 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.