Machine Learning Engineer

• Meet the Team
• Join a cutting-edge team focused on designing, building, and securing modern AI systems that power autonomous agents and LLM-powered applications. This team operates at the intersection of applied machine learning, software engineering, and security, delivering trustworthy, observable, and resilient AI solutions that address software security across Cisco and the industry. You will be part of a collaborative environment that values innovation, security, and operational excellence.

• Your Impact
• As an AI/ML Engineer, you will design and implement agentic AI systems using frameworks such as LangGraph, DeepAgents, Claude, OpenCode, or custom orchestration layers. You will build, evaluate, and deploy LLM-powered applications including agentic RAG pipelines, multi-agent workflows, and tool-using assistants. Your role includes integrating AI agents with internal and external systems via APIs and MCP servers, embedding security throughout the AI development lifecycle, and developing evaluation harnesses and red-team test suites to monitor model behavior and robustness. You will fine-tune open-weight models and collaborate with embedded engineering teams to deploy models effectively. Your work will ensure AI systems are not only capable but also secure and reliable.

• Minimum Qualifications
• Hands-on experience building agentic AI systems involving tool use, planning loops, multi-step reasoning, agent memory, and state management.
• 3+ years of experience in Software Engineering in an enterprise environment with technologies like Python, JavaScript, Typescript, or Go
• Working experience of LLM orchestration frameworks and creating agentic harnesses and agent skills.
• Familiarity with model training, evaluation, and troubleshooting to improve accuracy and reliability.
• Ability to develop reusable code aimed at automation and collaborate with engineering teams for deployment.

• Preferred Qualifications
• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in a relevant field.
• Background in cybersecurity, application security, or offensive security.
• Familiarity with MCP (Model Context Protocol), A2A protocols, or other emerging agent interoperability standards.
• Experience with fine-tuning techniques such as LoRA, QLoRA, DPO, RLHF, and model evaluation frameworks like lm-evaluation-harness or HELM.
• Experience with secure multi-tenant AI infrastructure, guardrail systems, or AI gateways.
• Strong understanding of security best practices embedded throughout the AI development lifecycle.

• 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.