Efficiency AI Ops Engineer Hybrid

Cisco Systems, Inc.; San Jose (CA); Hybrid; USD 203,000 - 259,000; Full time

Job summary

Cisco Systems, Inc. seeks an Efficiency AI Ops Engineer to lead real-time AI workload management and cost optimization for the Circuit platform in a hybrid environment. You will architect, optimize, and scale AI systems, guiding model deployment and ensuring production readiness.

Strong ownership and cross-functional leadership are essential to deliver measurable performance gains and reliability. Ideal candidates will have deep AI/ML experience, a solid software engineering foundation, and a

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a highly technical field plus 6 years of related experience (or advanced degrees as listed).
• Production experience deploying and maintaining scalable software systems.
• Deep hands-on expertise with AI/ML systems including model fine-tuning, RAG, or agentic frameworks.
• Strong software engineering foundation with clean code, reviews, and CI/CD practices.
• Demonstrated ownership of projects from concept to production lifecycle.

Responsibilities

• Architect and deploy real-time AI workload management systems.
• Research and implement cost-efficiency strategies for token compression and batching.
• Build automated regression and validation pipelines for AI agents.
• Lead cross-functional teams and mentor engineers to raise technical rigor.
• Own features end-to-end from design through production deployment and monitoring.

Skills

Production systems

AI/ML experience

Software engineering

Technical leadership

CI/CD testing

Cost optimization

Education

Bachelor's degree + 6 years

Master's + 4 years

PhD + 1 year

Tools

Cursor

GitHub Copilot

Job description

This role is hybrid. Onsite 3 days per week in Raleigh (Research Triangle Park), North Carolina or San Jose, California

Meet the Team

We are the "Circuit" platform team, the engine powering AI-driven business transformation for 80,000+ Cisco users. We operate at the intersection of applied research and production. We are a rapidly expanding, high-impact group dedicated to building the vehicle for AI-driven business transformation. We aren't building prototypes; we are building the infrastructure that defines how Cisco runs its business on AI.

Your Impact

As an Efficiency AI Ops Engineer, you are a hands-on technical lead who treats AI as an engineering problem. You will not just "use" AI-you will architect, optimize, and scale it. You will tackle high-impact problems like LLM token efficiency, automated model routing, and batch capacity management. In addition, you will introduce new Agentic capabilities to bring business applications to Circuit in AI first manner. Your success is measured by the tangible performance, new capabilities and cost-optimization of the Circuit platform. This is an opportunity to work on a high-visibility platform where your contributions to product innovation and development processes have a tangible, global impact on how Cisco runs its business.

Responsibilities

• Production Optimization: Architect and deploy systems for real-time AI workload management, including model routing and latency reduction.
• Cost-Efficiency Engineering: Research and implement strategies for token compression, batch capacity, and fine-tuning to maximize the return on investment of our model garden.
• Production Reliability: Build automated regression and validation pipelines for AI agents to ensure code generated by AI is production-ready, secure, and reliable.
• Technical Leadership: Act as a "Team Captain" for specific features; drive consensus among multi-functional teams and mentor peers to improve our collective engineering rigor.
• System Ownership: Take full ownership of a feature from research and design through to production deployment, security, monitoring, and post-mortem analysis.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree + 6 years of related experience (or Master's + 4, PhD + 1) in Computer Science or a highly technical field.
• Demonstrated experience in a production environment: Must show evidence of deploying and maintaining scalable software systems, not just standalone POCs.
• Deep hands‑on expertise with AI/ML systems: Experience with model fine‑tuning, RAG, or agentic frameworks where you have had to evaluate trade‑offs between cost, quality, and performance.
• Strong Software Engineering foundation: Ability to write clean, maintainable code, lead code reviews, and implement automated testing (regression/CI/CD).
• Consistent track record of technical ownership: Evidence of leading projects from initial concept to deployment and managing the production lifecycle.
• Strong critical thinking skills with the ability to evaluate and document technical trade‑offs regarding cost, quality, and performance.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with real-time AI workload management and custom LLM fine‑tuning to meet defined business metrics.
• Expertise in using AI‑assisted coding tools (e.g., Cursor, GitHub Copilot) to accelerate development while enforcing strict security standards.
• Good communication and influence: Ability to translate complex technical trade‑offs to product management and non‑technical partners.
• Experience building and productizing agentic applications with focus on evaluation and business acceptance.
• Mentorship: Experience elevating team technical proficiency through formal and informal knowledge sharing.

Why Cisco?

At Cisco, we're revolutionizing how data and infrastructure connect and protect organizations in the AI era - and beyond. We've been innovating fearlessly for 40 years to create solutions that power how humans and technology work together across the physical and digital worlds. These solutions provide customers with unparalleled security, visibility, and insights across the entire digital footprint.

Fueled by the depth and breadth of our technology, we experiment and create meaningful solutions. Add to that our worldwide network of doers and experts, and you'll see that the opportunities to grow and build are limitless. We work as a team, collaborating with empathy to make really big things happen on a global scale. Because our solutions are everywhere, our impact is everywhere.

We are Cisco, and our power starts with you.

Message to applicants applying to work in the U.S. and/or Canada:

The starting salary range posted for this position is $203,000.00 to $258,600.00 and reflects the projected salary range for new hires in this position in U.S. and/or Canada locations, not including incentive compensation*, equity, or benefits.

Individual pay is determined by the candidate's hiring location, market conditions, job-related skillset, experience, qualifications, education, certifications, and/or training. The full salary range for certain locations is listed below. For locations not listed below, the recruiter can share more details about compensation for the role in your location during the hiring process.

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. Please see the Cisco careers site to discover more benefits and perks. Employees may be eligible to receive grants of Cisco restricted stock units, which vest following continued employment with Cisco for defined periods of time.

U.S. employees are eligible for paid time away as described below, subject to Cisco's policies:

• 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 ofunused sick timecarried forwardfrom one calendar yearto 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, which is split between quota and non‑quota components, subject to the applicable Cisco plan. For quota‑based incentive pay, Cisco typically pays as follows:

• .75% of incentive target for each 1% of revenue attainment up to 50% of quota;

• 1.5% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 50% and 75%;

• 1% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 75% and 100%; and

• Once performance exceeds 100% attainment, incentive rates are at or above 1% for each 1% of attainment with no cap on incentive compensation.

For non‑quota‑based sales performance elements such as strategic sales objectives, Cisco may pay 0% up to 125% of target. Cisco sales plans do not have a minimum threshold of performance for sales incentive compensation to be paid.

The applicable full salary ranges for this position, by specific state, are listed below:

New York City Metro Area:

$203,000.00 - $297,400.00

Non‑Metro New York state & Washington state:

$181,000.00 - $264,600.00

* For quota‑based sales roles on Cisco's sales plan, the ranges provided in this posting include base pay and sales target incentive compensation combined.

** Employees in Illinois, whether exempt or non‑exempt, will participate in a unique time off program to meet local requirements.