Senior Machine Learning Engineer, NLP

Cisco; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Join a forward-thinking company as a Senior Machine Learning Engineer, where you'll innovate cutting-edge NLP and LLM solutions for an industry-leading collaboration platform. This role involves exploring and implementing next-gen AI technologies, conducting applied research, and collaborating with a diverse team of specialists. You'll be at the forefront of AI advancements, shaping the future of collaboration software and enhancing user experiences. If you're passionate about AI and eager to make a significant impact in a dynamic environment, this opportunity is perfect for you.

Benefits

Learning and Development Opportunities

Hybrid Work Environment

Diverse and Inclusive Culture

Health Insurance

Retirement Plans

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in NLP and 2+ years with LLM technologies.
• Proficiency in deep learning frameworks and production Python skills.

Responsibilities

• Innovate NLP/LLM solutions for Webex products and drive technological advancement.
• Collaborate with teams to implement next-gen AI technologies.

Skills

Natural Language Processing

Deep Learning

Machine Learning

Python Programming

AI/ML Research

Education

M.S. or Ph.D. in Computer Science

Mathematics or related field

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Keras

JAX

Hugging Face

Job description

The application window is expected to close on: April 14, 2025.

Meet the Team

Cisco Webex is the world's #1 business collaboration and customer engagement platform. It is used across all industries in the world being used to support governments, business, education, and more, including use by 85% of Fortune 500 business.

The workplace of the future will be powered by AI, and we, Collaboration AI, is the team responsible for building AI/ML intelligent experiences within Cisco’s Webex portfolio. The team is made up of multiple major AI fronts to enrich the collaboration use cases. This, in the order of processing pipeline, includes audio codec technologies, automatic speech recognition (ASR), text-to-speech (TTS), natural language processing (NLP) using and training LLMs and beyond, and gen-AI evaluation methodologies, both metric-based and subjective testing. In addition, videos are empowered via computer vision (CV) and additional contextual information by employee graphs, and much more.

We aim to build the next-generation AI solutions in collaboration software, devices, and APIs - from digitizing the in-meeting experience, enhancing distributed team efficiency and improving all aspects of people connection.

What You’ll Do

As a Senior Machine Learning Engineer on the Collaboration AI team, you will innovate NLP/LLM solutions for Webex products.

You are expected to be a main contributor in our AI technology space and bridge the gap between the fast evolving open-source AI landscape and the Webex user experience. You'll drive technological advancement while bridging cutting-edge AI developments with practical user experiences. Your responsibility will include, but not limited to, the following:

1. Explore and implement next-gen LLM technologies, focusing on retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), AI agents, and agentic workflows.
2. Fast prototype innovative concepts and create viable paths to production.
3. Conduct applied ML research and follow the systematic methodology: Establish benchmarking methods, evaluate against baselines, perform ablation studies, and deliver actionable recommendations.
4. Balance technical trade-offs to determine optimal production solutions.
5. Collaborate with system engineers, product managers, and client teams to drive productization.
6. Level up the team's AI/ML savviness as an AI knowledge catalyst.

Who You’ll Work With

You’ll join a small, high-caliber team of ML specialists, large scale systems pros, NLP, Speech, and CV practitioners and researchers, product gurus, customer artistes, and world-class designers who are all low ego and humble, and passionate about the future brought by AI. We adapt quickly, continuously improve, and deliver high-impact results. We’re not only aiming to build AI applications; we strive to build the best applications of AI the world has ever seen.

Many of our engineers have founded their own startups prior to forming Collaboration AI, and they bring a wide and diverse set of industry experience and expertise with them. We draw on this well of experiences every day as we collaborate on our own product, tech stack, and go to market strategy. We're highly collaborative, committed to building great things, and consider it a privilege to learn from each other every day.

Minimum Requirements

1. M.S. or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Mathematics, or a related field.
2. 5+ years of experience with Natural Language Processing.
3. 2+ years of experience implementing LLM technologies, systems, and applications.
4. Proficiency with deep learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, JAX, Keras, TensorFlow), ML ecosystems (e.g., Hugging Face) and production Python programming skills.

Preferred Requirements

1. Proven experience deploying NLP/LLM solutions in production environments.
2. Strong judgment to assess practical value versus industry hype.
3. Demonstrated persistence in problem-solving complex challenges.
4. Deep intellectual curiosity in emerging AI technologies.
5. Engineering mentality at heart.
6. Research contributions in NLP (publications, patents, presentations) are a plus.

#WeAreCisco where every individual brings their unique skills and perspectives together to pursue our purpose of powering an inclusive future for all.

Our passion is connection—we celebrate our employees’ diverse set of backgrounds and focus on unlocking potential. Cisconians often experience one company, many careers where learning and development are encouraged and supported at every stage. Our technology, tools, and culture pioneered hybrid work trends, allowing all to not only give their best, but be their best.

Cisco is an Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, genetic information, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected basis.

Cisco will consider for employment, on a case by case basis, qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.