Staff Applied AI Scientist

Cisco Systems, Inc.•San Jose, CA

28d•$212,300 - $275,800

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 3+ years of industry research experience.
Proven track record in at least one of the following areas: large language modeling for both structure and unstructured data, deep learningâbased time series modeling, advanced anomaly detection, and multi-modality modeling.
Solid proficiency in Python and deep learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow)
Experience translating research ideas into production systems.

Nice To Haves

Deep Learning for Time Series & Forecasting - Proven expertise designing and deploying architectures such as temporal transformers, temporal convolutional networks, and spatialâtemporal models.
Advanced Anomaly Detection - Experience creating robust, scalable approaches (statistical, deep learning, or hybrid) for highâvolume, realâtime time series data.
MultiâModal AI Modeling - Strong track record fusing logs, time series, traces, tabular data, and graphs for foundation models tackling complex operational insights.
Probabilistic Forecasting & Uncertainty Quantification - Skills in Bayesian deep learning and probabilistic models to capture and communicate predictive uncertainty.
LargeâScale Training & Optimization - Experience optimizing model architectures, distributed training pipelines, and inference efficiency to minimize cost and latency while preserving accuracy.
MLOps & Continuous Learning - Fluency in automated retraining, drift detection, incremental updates, and production monitoring of ML models.
Strong Research Track Record - Publications in top AI/ML conferences or journals (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, AAAI, CVPR, ACL, KDD) demonstrating contributions to stateâofâtheâart methods and realâworld applications.

Responsibilities

Lead endâtoâend research, design, and deployment of largeâscale foundation models for machineâgenerated data - primarily time series, augmented with logs traces, and events.
Drive optimization of distributed training and inference pipelines to balance accuracy, performance, and cost at scale.
Partner closely with engineering, product, and data science teams to align AI solutions with both technical requirements and strategic business objectives.
Mentor and inspire team members, facilitate highâimpact technical discussions, and guide research from concept through production deployment.
Stay at the forefront of AI/ML innovations, leveraging emerging advancements to strategically influence and evolve the organization's technology roadmap

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
For non-sales roles, employees are also eligible to earn annual bonuses subject to Cisco's policies.