Senior AI Researcher

The Cisco AI Research team is a dynamic group of scientists and engineers dedicated to building the future of proprietary intelligence. Our core mission is to develop purpose-built large language models tailored specifically for Cisco’s networking, security, and observability domains.

As a Senior AI Researcher, you will produce research advances in the field of Generative AI that improve the capabilities of models or agents for networking automation, human-computer interaction, model safety, or other strategic gen-AI powered networking areas. You will research building domain-specific foundational representations relevant to networking that provide differentiative value across diverse sets of applications. You will be a thought leader in the global research community via publishing papers, giving technical talks, organizing workshops etc.

Responsibilities:

• Help build purpose-built large language models to secure and optimize Cisco’s proprietary networking, security, data center, and observability infrastructure.
• Drive pre-training initiatives to build foundational models that provide unique, competitive value across our product portfolio.
• Conduct innovative research in generative AI to improve model capabilities for networking automation and human-computer interaction.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams of engineers and strategists to integrate research breakthroughs into tangible business solutions.
• Establish Cisco as a global thought leader by publishing research in top-tier AI venues and contributing to the broader scientific community.

Minimum qualifications:

• Bachelor's in computer science + 7 years of related experience, or Masters + 4 years of related experience, or PhD + 1 year of related experience.
• Experience with LLM pre-training and post-training experience within an industry or academic research lab.
• Minimum of 3 publications within top AI Venues such as ACL, EMNLP, ICLR, ICML, NAACL, NeurIPS.
• Experience working with Machine Learning Models (MLMs) and familiarity with associated frameworks, such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, Hugging Face, or equivalent platforms.
• Prior experience driving research projects within an industry or university research lab (full-time, internship etc.).

Preferred qualifications:

• Interest in combining representation learning and problem-specific properties.
• Experience in building, fine-tuning foundation models including LLMs and multi-modal models or domain-specific models.
• Ability to maintain cutting-edge knowledge in generative AI, Large Language Models (LLMs), and multi-modal models and apply these technologies innovatively to emerging business problems, use cases, and scenarios.
• Outstanding communication, interpersonal, relationship-building skills conducive to collaboration.

Benefits:

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• 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 paid day off for employee’s birthday.
• Paid year-end holiday shutdown.
• 4 paid days off for personal wellness.
• Non-exempt employees receive 16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year.
• Exempt employees participate in Cisco’s flexible vacation time off program.
• 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.
• Optional 10 paid days per full calendar year to volunteer.

Salary range: $203,000.00 to $258,600.00