Senior Lead AI Researcher - Models for Networking Security

Cisco Systems, Inc.; Milpitas (CA); Hybrid; USD 257,000 - 333,000; Full time

Job summary

Cisco Systems, Inc. is seeking a Senior Lead AI Researcher to architect Cisco's proprietary intelligence. You will lead end-to-end pre-training initiatives for foundation models tailored to networking, security, and observability, working with engineers and strategists to turn research into scalable solutions.

The role emphasizes foundational model development, industrial research experience, and publishing insights in premier AI venues, contributing to Cisco's global AI leadership.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in STEM with 12+ years of experience or a Master's with 8+ years, or PhD with 5+ years.
• Experience leading or contributing to full-cycle pre-training or continual pre-training for a Large Language Model, including dataset curation and training pipelines.
• Minimum of 3 peer-reviewed publications in top AI venues (ACL/EMNLP/ICLR/ICML/NAACL/NeurIPS).
• 3+ years using PyTorch or TensorFlow on clusters with 100+ GPUs.
• 2+ years applying ML to networking, data center, security, or observability datasets.

Responsibilities

• Lead development of purpose-built LLMs for Cisco's infrastructure.
• Drive pre-training initiatives for foundational models.
• Conduct research in generative AI to improve networking automation and HCI.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to translate research into business solutions.
• Publish research in top AI venues and contribute to the scientific community.

Skills

Pre-training large language models

PyTorch or TensorFlow

Distributed training on large clusters

Publications in top AI venues

Networking, security, observability ML

Education

PhD in STEM or related field

Master's degree in STEM

Bachelor's degree in STEM

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Job description

Cisco Systems, Inc. is seeking a Senior Lead AI Researcher to architect Cisco's proprietary intelligence. You will lead end-to-end pre-training initiatives for foundation models tailored to networking, security, and observability, working with engineers and strategists to turn research into scalable solutions.

The role emphasizes foundational model development, industrial research experience, and publishing insights in premier AI venues, contributing to Cisco's global AI leadership.