Principal AI Researcher: Lead Enterprise Foundation Models

Cisco Systems, Inc; Milpitas (CA); Hybrid; USD 264,000 - 333,000; Full time

Job summary

Cisco Systems, Inc. is seeking a Principal AI Researcher to define the strategy and architecture for Cisco’s proprietary intelligence.

You will lead multi-year research, guide foundation models, and architect agentic frameworks across networking, security, and observability domains. You will bridge theory and production, drive end-to-end pre-training, and publish influential work while advising executives on scalable, enterprise-grade AI solutions.

Qualifications

• PhD with 8+ years of research in STEM or related field.
• Master's with 12+ years of research experience or PhD 8+ years.
• 6+ publications in top AI venues (ACL/EMNLP/ICLR/ICML/NAACL/NeurIPS).
• 5+ years building and scaling training pipelines in massive distributed environments (1000+ GPUs).
• 4+ years applying generative ML to complex domains (networking, security, data center).

Responsibilities

• Define the multi-year research strategy and roadmap for purpose-built LLMs for Cisco’s domains.
• Lead large-scale pre-training, CPT, and reinforcement learning to develop foundational models.
• Architect agentic frameworks and autonomous IT workflows for enterprise use.
• Advise executives translating breakthroughs into scalable product ecosystems.
• Publish high-impact research and engage with top AI venues and the scholarly community.

Skills

Foundation models

Research strategy

Executive advisory

Publications

Pre-training pipelines

Education

PhD in STEM

Master's in STEM

Bachelor's in STEM

Tools

PyTorch

Distributed training

Job description

Cisco Systems, Inc. is seeking a Principal AI Researcher to define the strategy and architecture for Cisco’s proprietary intelligence.

You will lead multi-year research, guide foundation models, and architect agentic frameworks across networking, security, and observability domains. You will bridge theory and production, drive end-to-end pre-training, and publish influential work while advising executives on scalable, enterprise-grade AI solutions.