Senior AI Researcher

Cisco•San Francisco, CA

2d•$216,300 - $280,800

About The Position

At Foundation AI, we are leading frontier AI research across Cisco. Our mission is to advance the state of artificial intelligence through fundamental research and translate scientific breakthroughs into differentiated technologies that power the next generation of enterprise AI. Our research spans foundation models, agentic AI, multimodal learning, reasoning systems, scalable training algorithms, evaluation science, inference optimization, and AI systems infrastructure. We work at the intersection of cutting-edge research and real-world impact, developing technologies that influence Cisco's AI strategy while contributing meaningfully to the broader AI research community. We believe impactful research should advance both science and products. Our researchers publish at top AI conferences, contribute to open-source projects, collaborate with leading academic institutions, and build production systems that solve challenging enterprise-scale problems.

Requirements

PhD in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or a related technical field, plus 5+ years of relevant research experience, or equivalent demonstrated research impact.
Demonstrated track record of sustained, high-impact publications at top-tier machine learning and AI conferences (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, EMNLP, CVPR, ICCV, or equivalent venues).
Demonstrated expertise in foundation models, post-training and alignment, LLMs, agentic AI, reinforcement learning, reasoning, efficient inference, or distributed training, evidenced by 5+ years of relevant research/engineering experience and/or multiple production-scale model deployments, publications, or open-source contributions.
5+ years of hands-on Python and PyTorch experience, including training and optimizing models across multi-GPU or distributed environments and working with modern ML research and production frameworks.
Proven ability to lead complex, ambiguous technical projects from conception to deployment as an individual contributor.

Nice To Haves

Hands-on expertise in high-performance computing environments, with a track record of leading distributed training across thousands of GPUs using frameworks and communication primitives such as CUDA, NCCL, FSDP2, and Megatron-LM.
Experience deploying high-performance inference engines such as vLLM and SGLang, and working with cloud-native deployment, Docker, Kubernetes, MLOps pipelines, and major cloud platforms such as AWS, GCP, or Azure.
Experience designing and scaling agentic AI workflows, multi-agent frameworks, and autonomous AI systems.
Familiarity with cybersecurity principles, AI systems for security-focused use cases, safety, and robust machine learning.
Demonstrated leadership within the global AI research community, specifically serving as an Area Chair or senior program committee member for top-tier AI conferences.

Responsibilities

Operate as a visionary technical leader, architecting and executing frontier AI research that dictates Foundation AI's long-term technical trajectory.
Identify emerging research opportunities, formulate original research hypotheses, and lead ambitious research programs spanning foundation models, agentic AI, reasoning, multimodal learning, and large-scale AI systems.
Translate scientific advances into scalable technologies that differentiate Cisco's AI platform.
Provide scientific leadership across multiple research initiatives.
Mentor junior researchers and interns.
Influence executive technical strategy.
Represent Cisco externally through top-tier publications, open-source leadership, and active collaboration with the global AI research community.

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
grants of Cisco restricted stock units
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 employees)
flexible vacation time off program (exempt employees)
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 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
annual bonuses (for non-sales roles)
performance-based incentive pay (for sales roles)