The application window has been extended to 8/15/2025.
Job posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or if a sufficient number of applications are received.
Preference for Boston Metro candidates that can work hybrid in the Downtown Boston office one to two days week. However, open to remote locations within the US.
Meet the Team
Cisco Systems offers an extraordinary opportunity to be part of a small, innovative team with a high-throughput, low-process culture. This team, originally founded as a Cisco-funded startup, is building a cutting-edge cloud-native cybersecurity management platform. We are seeking a passionate AI Technical Leader to develop cybersecurity and networking AI agentic workflows that emulate Network Engineers, an industry-first, and contribute toward a vision of smart, self-healing networks.
Your Impact
As a Lead Machine Learning Engineer/Technical Leader you will drive the development of advanced AI capabilities in our cybersecurity products! In this role, you will build and lead innovative initiatives that build toward intent-driven, self-healing networks, and build AI that can perform a Network Engineer's role. You will experiment with state-of-the-art, and execute on state-of-the-practical, working with data from thousands of customers, while contributing to a business that serves as the backbone of the internet!
You should be comfortable operating in a fast-paced, startup-like environment-tackling ambiguous challenges and making data-driven decisions.j
While this is a Lead role, it is primarily a hands-on position as in a start-up. We are looking for a seasoned engineer at their core who is comfortable with code, and brings foundational software engineering skills and deep technical expertise. Although AI tools will be available, we expect candidates to demonstrate exceptional coding.
Minimum Qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, or a related field with 8+ years of experience in software development, with at least 5 years of AI/ML experience
- Experience in MLOps & Data Pipelines with data preprocessing, feature engineering, vector databases (Pinecone, Weaviate etc), orchestration, deploying and serving models on public clouds, and monitoring
- Experience with at least one of the AI/ML frameworks and relevant tools around it to build end-to-end AI workflows (Ex: LangChain, PyTorch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face, OpenAI APIs etc)
- 5 + years of professional work experience with Python, Go, Java or another relevant language, with experience with scalable and secure software development practices
- AI/ML experience building and deploying discriminative and generative AI workflows - predictive models, LLM-based applications, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems and AI Agents
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience with Networking & Security: Experience with products that make the internet work, and of the cybersecurity landscape, is a plus. Keywords: Next Gen Firewalls, Threat Detection, IPS, TCP/IP stack, VPN, ZTNA, routing, packet analysis, event analysis etc.
- Experience building cloud native apps on AWS
- Experience building platforms and frameworks that democratize tech for large orgs - with particular focus on data and AI facets
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. Simply put - we power the future.
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.
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#LI-RemoteMessage to applicants applying to work in the U.S. and/or Canada: When available, the salary range posted for this position reflects the projected hiring range for new hire, full-time salaries in U.S. and/or Canada locations, not including equity or benefits. For non-sales roles the hiring ranges reflect base salary only; employees are also eligible to receive annual bonuses. Hiring ranges for sales positions include base and incentive compensation target. Individual pay is determined by the candidate's hiring location and additional factors, including but not limited to skillset, experience, and relevant education, certifications, or training. Applicants may not be eligible for the full salary range based on their U.S. or Canada hiring location. The recruiter can share more details about compensation for the role in your location during the hiring process.
U.S. employees have to quality medical, dental and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution, short and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance and numerous wellbeing offerings.
Employees receive up to twelve paid holidays per calendar year, which includes one floating holiday (for non-exempt employees), plus a day off for their birthday. Non-Exempt new hires accrue up to 16 days of vacation time off each year, at a rate of 4.92 hours per pay period. Exempt new hires participate in Cisco's flexible Vacation Time Off policy, which does not place a defined limit on how much vacation time eligible employees may use, but is subject to availability and some business limitations. All new hires are eligible for Sick Time Off subject to Cisco's Sick Time Off Policy and will have eighty (80) hours of sick time off provided on their hire date and on January 1st of each year thereafter. Up to 80 hours of unused sick time will be carried forward from one calendar year to the next such that the maximum number of sick time hours an employee may have available is 160 hours. Employees in Illinois have a unique time off program designed specifically with local requirements in mind. All employees also have access to paid time away to deal with critical or emergency issues. We offer additional paid time to volunteer and give back to the community.
Employees on sales plans earn performance-based incentive pay on top of their base salary, which is split between quota and non-quota components. 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 up to 125% of target. Cisco sales plans do not have a minimum threshold of performance for sales incentive compensation to be paid.
