Senior Research Engineer Manager

Cisco Systems, Inc.•San Jose, CA

82d

About The Position

Splunk, a Cisco company, is building a safer, more resilient digital world with an endâtoâend, fullâstack platform designed for hybrid, multiâcloud environments. Join the Foundational Modeling team at Splunk, where we advance the state of AI for highâvolume, realâtime, multiâmodal machineâgenerated data - including logs, time series, traces, and events. We combine deep AI research expertise with the scale and operational excellence of Splunk and Cisco's global engineering capabilities. Our work spans networking, security, observability, and customer experience - designing and deploying foundation models that enhance reliability, strengthen security, prevent downtime, and deliver predictive insights across Splunk Observability, Security, and Platform at enterprise scale. You'll be part of a culture that values technical excellence, impactâdriven innovation, and crossâfunctional collaboration - all within a flexible, growthâoriented environment.

Requirements

PhD in Computer Science, or related quantitative field, plus 5+ years of industry research experience.
Proven track record of leading AI science teams focused on foundation model research and deployment, with at least 2+ years in technical leadership roles.
Strong delivery management skills with Agile methodologies and experience translating complex technical vision into practical deliverables.

Nice To Haves

Deep NLP & DomainâAdapted LLMs: Background in building and adapting largeâscale language models (e.g., T5, BERT, LLaMA) for specialized domains including structured/unstructured logs, text, and event sequences.
Log Analytics Expertise - Inâdepth knowledge of structured/unstructured system logs, event sequence analysis, anomaly detection, and root cause identification.
Demonstrated success managing crossâfunctional engineering teams (ML engineers, data scientists, infrastructure engineers).
Familiarity with MLOps practices and orchestration platforms (Kubeflow, MLflow, W&B) for scalable, productionâgrade model management.
Publications or presentations at reputable AI/ML conferences (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, KDD, ACL) highlighting applied research leadership.

Responsibilities

Lead & Scale Science Teams - Manage a science and engineering team that develops and deploys largeâscale foundation models targeting machineâgenerated data, with primary emphasis on logs.
Define the Technical Roadmap - Set clear technical priorities and research strategies, integrating innovation with onâtime delivery to meet strategic business objectives.
Drive Agile AI Development - Convert research goals into actionable, trackable projects using agile methodologies, ensuring transparency across all stakeholders.
Enable Talent Growth - Mentor and develop scientists and engineers, fostering a culture where innovation, skill advancement, and delivery excellence coexist.
Ensure Measurable Business Outcomes - Align research and deployment activities with KPIs such as reduced incident resolution times, system reliability improvements, cost optimization, or accuracy gains.

Benefits

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.
Employees may be eligible to receive grants of Cisco restricted stock units, which vest following continued employment with Cisco for defined periods of time.
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

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