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

Machine Learning Engineering Technical Leader (hybrid) - 2009800

*position requires a few days (varies) each week on site in San Jose office*

Meet the Team:

Leading Product and Test Engineering for Cisco Silicon One portfolio

Who You Are:

Designs, develops, and refines algorithms, including neural network architectures tailored for natural language processing and/or machine perception tasks, to create functional predictive models for diverse applications.  Utilizes a diverse array of training-time and inference-time techniques, including convolutional and transformer-based models, student-teacher models, distillation, and generative-adversarial networks (GANs), as well as the design of cost models and discriminators, to optimize model performance in terms of accuracy, efficiency, scalability, and reliability for real-world deployment.

What You’ll Do:
• Leverages a range of Cisco data and external data to identify opportunities and define a variety of hypotheses
• Articulates the solution, defines its feasibility, understands its marketing requirements and communicates to program managers
• Keeps abreast of industry changes and latest developments to aide in model and architecture selection and development
• Guides teams in building and evolving model design practices for high-priority/ business critical ML models across multiple products/teams
• Leads exploration of state of the art, emerging model architectures and algorithms that contribute to building Cisco's products
• Leads automation of various steps in machine language workflow including model selection, training and inference
• Designs novel and complex custom models
• Architects' data splitting pipelines for specialized scenarios, creates optimization techniques for highly specialized model training efficiency and performance
• Sets the technical vision and strategy for the Function or Portfolio's ML initiatives, including long-term model lifecycle management and continuous improvement
• Leads research on and champions best practices for model integration and deployment using CI/CD principles

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelors degree + 12 years of related experience, or Masters degree + 8 years of related experience, or PhD + 5 years of related experience
• Developed, trained, and deployed machine learning models for real-world applications
• Trained and optimized machine learning models to improve quality yield and reduce test time across the Silicon One product portfolio
• Designed and implemented end-to-end ML pipelines (data ingestion, feature engineering, model training, evaluation, deployment, monitoring)
• Analyzed large, complex datasets to extract actionable insights and inform decision-making
• Collaborated with cross-functional teams including product, engineering, and business stakeholders
• Built scalable data processing systems using distributed frameworks 
  Optimize model performance, latency, and resource utilization in production environments
• Implemented A/B testing and experimentation frameworks to validate model impact
• Maintained and improved data quality, feature stores, and model monitoring systems
• Documented methodologies, models, and system architectures

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with deep learning, NLP, or computer vision
• Familiarity with MLOps tools (e.g., MLflow, Kubeflow, Airflow)
• Experience with big data technologies (e.g., Spark, Hadoop)
• Knowledge of containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes)
• Experience with real-time inference systems
• Strong understanding of software engineering best practices (CI/CD, version control, testing)

SiOps

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.

For more details click Job Post.