Principal ML Engineer — Forward-Deployed AI Platform

Cisco Systems; San Jose (CA); Hybrid; USD 264,000 - 431,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental and vision insurance

401(k) plan with Cisco matching

Paid parental leave

Short and long-term disability

Paid holidays: 10 + floating holiday

Volunteer days

Annual bonuses for non-sales roles

Cisco RSUs

Job summary

Cisco Systems in San Jose, CA invites a Principal Machine Learning Engineer to embed with customers, observe real workflows, and rapidly prototype AI platform capabilities. You will lead research-to-code efforts, focusing on production hardening and secure, scalable services for Cisco's global customer base.

Collaborating with Product Management and Core Engineering, you will help drive usage metrics and ensure features align with actual engagement while maintaining a strong customer-first

Qualifications

• PhD in STEM (or equivalent) with 8+ years of relevant experience; or Bachelor’s in STEM with 15+ years; or Master’s in STEM with 12+ years.
• Experience building and operating scalable, highly distributed multi-tenant systems with strict isolation and security boundaries.
• Experience building external-facing developer platforms or infrastructure-focused products.
• End-to-end system design experience, including observability, failure handling, and ergonomics; plus authorization models like RBAC/ABAC.

Responsibilities

• Embed with customers to observe workflows, surface friction points, and prototype AI platform capabilities.
• Lead research-to-code initiatives with a focus on production hardening.
• Partner with Product Management to drive verified usage metrics aligned with engagement data.
• Collaborate with core engineering to transition prototypes into secure, multi-tenant, scalable services.
• Serve as an internal industry expert translating customer challenges into scalable software solutions.
• Promote a customer-first engineering mindset within the AI Platform group, coaching teams on rapid iteration and enterprise compliance.

Skills

Multi-tenant systems

Security boundaries

External-facing platforms

End-to-end system design

RBAC/ABAC

Observability

Education

PhD in STEM

Bachelor's in STEM

Master's in STEM

Job description

Cisco Systems in San Jose, CA invites a Principal Machine Learning Engineer to embed with customers, observe real workflows, and rapidly prototype AI platform capabilities. You will lead research-to-code efforts, focusing on production hardening and secure, scalable services for Cisco's global customer base.

Collaborating with Product Management and Core Engineering, you will help drive usage metrics and ensure features align with actual engagement while maintaining a strong customer-first