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 lead the architecture and engineering of systems that detect, validate, and stop threats to AI. The role is based out of Cisco’s San Jose office and is hybrid. The technical lead will define scalable, high-performance platform services that protect AI applications and agents in real time; lead complex design and implementation work; and shape LLM inference and model-hosting strategy for enterprise workloads. The position partners with Product, Threat Research, and Operations to deliver production-grade features with operational excellence, while setting engineering standards, mentoring colleagues, and communicating strategy and trade-offs to senior leadership.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and 10+ years of software engineering experience, or a Master’s degree and 8+ years, or a Ph.D. and 3+ years.
- Software engineering experience architecting and delivering large-scale distributed systems.
- Experience with cloud-native backend development and modern cloud infrastructure.
- Prior 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 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.
- Serve as a technical thought leader and mentor, raise engineering standards, and communicate complex strategy and trade-offs to senior leadership.
Benefits
- Medical insurance
- Dental insurance
- Vision insurance
- 401(k) plan with Cisco matching contribution
- Paid parental leave
- Short- and long-term disability coverage
- Basic life insurance
- Paid holidays
- Floating holiday for non-exempt employees
- Paid day off for employee’s birthday
- Paid year-end holiday shutdown
- Paid personal wellness days
- Paid vacation or flexible vacation time off, depending on employee classification
- Sick time off
- Additional paid time away may be requested for critical or emergency family issues
- Optional paid volunteer days
- Annual bonuses for eligible non-sales employees
- Potential Cisco restricted stock unit grants
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
