Senior AI Research & Agentic Engineer Hybrid

Cisco • San Jose, CA

2d • Hybrid

About The Position

Join Cisco’s Enterprise AI team, the core group enabling Generative AI powered experiences across Cisco. Our mission is to build secure, scalable AI platforms that empower teams to safely develop, deploy, and operationalize AI-powered solutions. We operate at the intersection of applied AI, cloud infrastructure and security - partnering across engineering, security, compliance, and product teams to bring trusted AI to life at enterprise scale. We are a fast-growing, highly collaborative team of platform engineers, AI engineers, and data scientists who value technical depth, ownership, and pragmatic execution. What makes this team exciting is the opportunity to define how secure Generative AI is built and governed inside a global technology leader.

Requirements

• Master’s degree in Computer Science or a related field and 4+ years of software engineering experience, OR bachelor’s degree with 7+ years of relevant experience.
• Proven experience designing and building scalable, cloud-based systems (AWS, Azure, or GCP), including deploying and managing cloud-native AI services with container orchestration tools such as Kubernetes (K8s) and Docker.
• Senior-level Python development skills and deep experience with orchestration frameworks such as LangChain or LangGraph.
• Hands-on experience integrating and deploying Large Language Models (LLMs) from providers such as OpenAI or Gemini.
• Demonstrated experience building and testing autonomous systems or multi-step agentic workflows, including strong background in prompt engineering and the ability to translate research-level AI concepts into functional, production-quality code.

Nice To Haves

• Familiarity with DevOps practices and Agile methodologies, including project tracking and backlog management in Jira.
• Proficiency with advanced coding tools (Claude Code, Codex, Copilot, Windsurf, Cursor).
• Experience building connectors or servers using Model Context Protocol (MCP) to extend agent capabilities.
• Practical experience with Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and vector database optimization.
• Ability to translate the latest AI research papers and industry breakthroughs into robust, production-ready solutions.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills, with a proven track record of partnering with product teams to deliver impactful AI solutions.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop sophisticated agentic workflows leveraging state-of-the-art LLM models and emerging frameworks to automate complex reasoning tasks.
• Rapidly prototype new AI features, transforming research concepts into functional demos using AI-native tools such as Copilot, Cursor, and Claude Code.
• Evaluate and integrate the latest advancements in AI—including Autonomous and Deep Agents—to ensure our platform remains an industry leader.
• Collaborate across teams to validate research prototypes, ensuring alignment with Cisco’s security and scalability standards.
• Accelerate AI adoption across the enterprise by creating reusable agentic patterns and tools that empower teams globally.

Benefits

• medical, dental and vision insurance
• a 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution
• paid parental leave
• short and long-term disability coverage
• basic life insurance
• 10 paid holidays per full calendar year
• 1 floating holiday for non-exempt employees
• 1 paid day off for employee’s birthday
• paid year-end holiday shutdown
• 4 paid days off for personal wellness
• 16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year (non-exempt)
• flexible vacation time off program (exempt)
• 80 hours of sick time off provided on hire date and each January 1st thereafter
• up to 80 hours of unused sick time carried forward
• Optional 10 paid days per full calendar year to volunteer
• annual bonuses (for non-sales roles)
• performance-based incentive pay (for sales roles)

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees