Lead Machine Learning Engineer , AI Defense (Hybrid)
About The Position
Cisco’s AI Defense team works to secure enterprise AI platforms, autonomous agents, and foundation models. The Lead Machine Learning Engineer will serve as a hands-on technical authority and technical lead, shaping product architecture and engineering standards for systems that detect, validate, and stop threats to AI. The role involves tackling complex design and implementation challenges, including low-latency LLM inference at scale and secure deployments in customer environments. The engineer will define scalable, high-performance platform services that protect AI applications and agents in real time; guide LLM inference and model-hosting strategy; and partner with Product, Threat Research, and Operations to deliver production-grade capabilities with operational excellence. The role also includes mentoring engineers, communicating technical strategy and trade-offs to senior leadership, and helping shape the team’s culture. This is a hybrid role based out of Cisco’s San Jose office.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and 10 or more years of software engineering experience, or a master’s degree and 8 or more years, or a Ph.D. and 3 or more years.
- Experience architecting and delivering large-scale distributed systems.
- Experience with cloud-native backend development and modern cloud infrastructure.
- Prior experience providing technical leadership across teams while remaining hands-on.
Nice To Haves
- Experience with LLM inference, generative AI systems, or AI/ML infrastructure.
- Background in security products or AI security.
- Experience delivering SaaS and hybrid enterprise deployments.
Responsibilities
- Define and drive the architecture of scalable, high-performance platform services that protect AI applications and agents in real time.
- Remain hands-on in design and implementation, leading by example on complex and ambiguous technical problems.
- Shape LLM inference and model-hosting strategy, balancing latency, cost, and scale for enterprise workloads.
- Partner with Product, Threat Research, and Operations to deploy production-grade features and capabilities with operational excellence.
- Act as a technical thought leader and mentor, raising engineering standards and communicating complex strategy and trade-offs to senior leadership.
Benefits
- Medical, dental, and vision insurance
- 401(k) plan with Cisco matching contribution
- Paid parental leave
- Short- and long-term disability coverage
- Basic life insurance
- Paid holidays and a floating holiday for non-exempt employees
- Paid birthday leave, year-end holiday shutdown, and personal wellness days
- Paid vacation or flexible vacation time off, depending on employee classification
- Paid sick time
- Additional paid time away may be requested for critical or emergency family issues
- Optional paid volunteer days
- Annual bonuses for eligible non-sales roles
- Potential Cisco restricted stock unit grants
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
