[Remote] Machine Learning Engineering Technical Leader

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Cisco, through Splunk, is building an end-to-end platform for hybrid and multi-cloud environments that applies AI across networking, security, observability, and customer experience. The role leads research and production deployment of agentic GenAI systems for intelligent code generation, while shaping the scientific roadmap, improving distributed training and inference, collaborating with engineering and product, and mentoring research teams.

Responsibilities

• Own the full lifecycle of research and deployment of next-generation AI systems for intelligent code generation, including model design, evaluation, and production rollout
• Define the scientific roadmap for agentic GenAI, enabling models that not only generate code but reason, plan, self-correct, and integrate with tools and runtime environments
• Advance the state of the art in DSL-aware code synthesis, shaping how future developer experiences are powered by LLMs across interactive and automated workflows
• Drive efficiency and scalability of distributed training and inference pipelines to balance performance, latency, and cost — without compromising accuracy or reliability
• Collaborate closely with engineering and product to ensure AI breakthroughs translate quickly and safely into high-impact customer capabilities
• Mentor and elevate a high-performing research organization, fostering a culture of scientific rigor, creativity, and delivery excellence
• Shape long-term AI strategy and innovation, influencing architectural decisions, technical investments, and roadmap direction across the GenAI organization

Skills

• PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, or a related technical field and 5+ years of post-doctoral or industry experience; or a Master's degree in a related field and 10+ years of industry experience
• 3+ years experience in developing Large Language Models (LLMs) for program synthesis or formal languages
• 2+ years experience in Multi-step planning or agentic AI for developer workflows
• 3+ years experience with Python and deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow
• 3+ years experience translating research prototypes into production systems, including model deployment, optimization, and evaluation
• Strong foundation in experimental design, benchmarking, reproducibility, evaluation metrics, and scientific documentation
• LLMs for Code Generation — Experience with training, fine-tuning, or adapting models such as Code-LLaMA, CodeT5, StarCoder, or GPT-based code models for program synthesis, refactoring, unit test generation, static/dynamic analysis, or domain-specific languages (DSLs)
• Domain-Specialized Modeling — Background building generative models that target structured languages (e.g., SQL, DSLs, configuration languages, or proprietary query languages/SPL)
• Agentic AI & Tool Use — Experience designing agents that plan, call tools/APIs, self-reflect, or drive code to iteratively refine solutions
• Structured Reasoning & Planning — Proven success applying techniques such as chain-of-thought, self-debugging, constrained decoding, or reinforcement learning for software development tasks
• Large-Scale Training & Optimization — Experience with distributed training, efficient inference (quantization, LoRA, caching, batching), and cost-aware scaling
• MLOps & Continuous Evaluation — Familiarity with automated model retraining, dataset curation, synthetic data pipelines, eval harnesses, and model health monitoring
• Research Leadership — Publications in premier AI/ML venues (NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, AAAI, KDD, etc.) and/or recognized contributions in the code-gen / LLM 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
• 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 the employee’s birthday
• Paid year-end holiday shutdown
• 4 paid days off for personal wellness determined by Cisco
• 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, 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 the 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
• For non-sales roles, employees are also eligible to earn annual bonuses subject to Cisco’s policies
• Employees on sales plans earn performance-based incentive pay on top of their base salary, subject to the applicable Cisco plan
• Remote work arrangement

Company Overview

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