Senior Machine Learning Engineer, AISWP (Hybrid)

Engg; San Jose (CA); Hybrid; USD 203,000 - 259,000; Full time

Job summary

Cisco AI Research is seeking a Senior Machine Learning Engineer to design and operate scalable data pipelines powering LLMs and AI models. You will craft synthetic data, improve labeling workflows, and automate data generation and evaluation at scale.

You will work closely with researchers and engineers to determine data needs, build production-ready systems, and measure impact on model performance through robust experiments and metrics.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or higher in a STEM field with strong system-building capabilities.
• 2+ years building datasets for ML training and evaluation.
• 3+ years of production-grade ML/AI framework experience (PyTorch, TensorFlow, etc.).

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and own end-to-end data pipelines for ML and LLM training, evaluation, and improvement.
• Build human-in-the-loop data labeling pipelines with quality control and feedback integration.
• Develop scalable synthetic data generation, augmentation, filtering, and validation workflows.
• Apply LLMs and ML techniques to automate data generation, labeling, and evaluation.
• Measure dataset quality across label accuracy, coverage, bias, and distribution shifts.
• Provide architectural leadership across data pipelines and ML infrastructure.

Skills

Python

C++

Go

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Data engineering

Distributed data processing

Education

Bachelor's degree in STEM

Master's degree in STEM

PhD in STEM

Tools

Spark

Ray

Beam

Job description

The application window is expected to close on: 10/29/2026 This is a hybrid position based out of Cisco's Seattle or San Jose office.

Meet the Team

The Cisco AI Research team brings together AI researchers, machine learning engineers, data engineers, and networking domain experts to build the next generation of AI-powered networking. We work at the intersection of generative AI, large-scale data systems, and networking, developing Large Language Models (LLMs), agents, and domain-specific AI systems. Our work spans research and engineering, with a strong focus on translating advances in AI into scalable systems and real-world impact.

Your Impact

As a Senior Machine Learning Engineer, you will build and improve the data and ML systems that power our LLMs and AI models. A major focus of this role is solving one of the most important challenges in modern AI: creating high-quality training and evaluation data at scale. You will design and build scalable data pipelines, improve human data labeling workflows, create synthetic datasets, and develop automated approaches for continuously measuring and improving dataset quality. This is a hands‑on technical role at the intersection of machine learning engineering and data engineering. You will work closely with researchers, engineers, and domain experts to determine what data our models need, how to create it efficiently, and how to measure its impact on model performance.

What You’ll Do

• Design, build, and own end-to-end data pipelines for ML and LLM training, post‑training, evaluation, and continuous model improvement.
• Build and improve human‑in‑the‑loop data labeling pipelines, including data collection, task generation, annotation workflows, quality control, and feedback integration.
• Develop scalable approaches for synthetic data generation, augmentation, filtering, and validation to improve dataset quality, diversity, and coverage.
• Apply LLMs and other ML techniques to automate data generation, labeling, filtering, scoring, and evaluation.
• Develop systems and metrics to continuously measure dataset quality, including label quality, duplication, contamination, coverage, bias, and distribution shifts.
• Build reliable and scalable infrastructure for processing large volumes of structured and unstructured data.
• Design experiments to understand how dataset quality and composition affect downstream model performance, and use those insights to drive improvements.
• Partner with researchers and ML engineers to develop datasets for model training, fine‑tuning, preference learning, evaluation, and agent development.
• Translate research ideas and prototypes into robust, production‑ready data and ML systems.
• Make architectural and technical decisions across data pipelines, ML infrastructure, storage, compute, and evaluation systems.
• Provide technical leadership through design reviews, engineering best practices, mentoring, and cross‑functional collaboration.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a STEM field with 7+ years of relevant experience, OR Master’s degree in a STEM field with 4+ years of relevant experience, OR PhD in STEM or a relevant technical field with 1+ years of industry or academic research experience.
• 2+ years of hands‑on experience building, curating, and scaling datasets for machine learning training and evaluation.
• 3+ years of professional programming experience using Python, C++, or Go within a production or research environment.
• 3+ years of experience using machine learning frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, or equivalent technologies to develop, train, evaluate, and deploy machine learning models.

Preferred Qualifications

• Expertise in curating, scaling, and managing datasets for the entire LLM lifecycle—including synthetic data generation, augmentation, and post‑training workflows like SFT and RLHF.
• Proficiency in designing human‑in‑the‑loop labeling systems and proactively mitigating complex dataset failure modes such as label noise, bias, contamination, and distribution shift.
• Demonstrated success using LLMs for data generation, model‑assisted labeling, and evaluation, with a focus on connecting iterative dataset changes to measurable improvements in model performance.
• Strong technical foundation in distributed data processing frameworks (e.g., Spark, Ray, Beam) and the ability to architect and deploy complex data engineering projects into production.
• A research‑engineering mindset that bridges the gap between experimentation and production, combined with communication skills to influence researchers, engineers, and product stakeholders.

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