New

AI Machine Learning Engineer III (Full Time) - United States

Cisco Systems, Inc.
life insurance, vision insurance, parental leave, paid holidays, sick time, 401(k)
United States, California, San Jose
170 W Tasman Dr (Show on map)
Jan 17, 2026
Please note this posting is to advertise potential job opportunities. This exact role may not be open today but could open in the near future. When you apply, a Cisco representative may contact you directly if a relevant position opens. Applications are accepted until further notice. 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. Your Impact In this role, you will be responsible for conducting applied NLP research to advance our Language AI features. This includes, but not limited to, hierarchical summarization, internationalization, evaluation of generated texts, human alignment, and more fundamentally, a crucial set of techniques that can utilize the existing pre-/mid-/post-trained LLM model checkpoints to the best extent, by, for instance, fine-tuning, adaptation, model surgery/editing, and reinforcement learning to customize models for the business need, for cloud, on-prem, and on-device deployment. Your duties will include innovating and employing cutting-edge technologies with the consideration of practical product launch, which concerns optimization of performance, scalability, safety, reliability, and measurable generation quality. Staying up to date with the latest advancements in AI and machine learning (ML) is expected, as is suggesting how new technologies might be implemented. Addressing and resolving any modeling issues that arise from product applications will be an integral part of your responsibilities: Advance Collaboration AI's Language AI capabilities by researching, prototyping, and implementing next-generation LLM technologies Conduct rigorous applied NLP research following systematic methodology: establish benchmarks, evaluate baselines, perform ablation studies, and deliver actionable recommendations Develop and evaluate NLP models that address specific business requirements Balance technical trade-offs (performance, latency, cost, quality) to determine optimal production solutions Collaborate with product managers and stakeholders to translate research into production features Write production-ready code with appropriate testing, documentation, and deployment considerations Pursue publication opportunities at top-tier NLP and ML conferences Minimum Qualifications Recent graduate or in your final year of studies toward a PhD, or Master's degree with 3+ years of post-graduation work experience in related fields. Relevant fields include Computer Science, Data Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Engineering, or a related STEM program Strong foundation in machine learning and natural language processing, including familiarity with transformer architectures, common training schemes, and evaluation methodologies Proficiency in Python and experience with at least one deep learning framework Demonstrated NLP or ML research experience through publications, technical reports, thesis work, or significant contributions to related projects Preferred Qualifications At least one NLP or ML research paper published in a top-tier conference, such as ACL, EMNLP, ICLR, ICML, NeurIPS, etc. Experience in using cloud services such as AWS, Google Cloud Platform, and Azure, for model training and deployment. Experience writing production-quality Python code including testing, documentation, and code review practices Familiar with LLM benchmarking methods and experience analyzing benchmark datasets Experience collaborating with cross-functional teams to deliver production ML solutions 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: 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 listed below, the recruiter can share more details about compensation for the role in your location during the hiring process. U.S. employees are offered benefits, subject to Cisco's plan eligibility rules, which include medical, dental and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution, paid parental leave, short and long-term disability coverage, and basic life insurance. Please see the Cisco careers site to discover more benefits and perks. Employees may be eligible to receive grants of Cisco restricted stock units, which vest following continued employment with Cisco for defined periods of time. U.S. employees are eligible for paid time away as described below, subject to Cisco's policies: 10 paid holidays per full calendar year, plus 1 floating holiday for non-exempt employees 1 paid day off for employee's birthday, paid year-end holiday shutdown, and 4 paid days off for personal wellness determined by Cisco Non-exempt employees** receive 16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year, accrued at rate of 4.92 hours per pay period for full-time employees Exempt employees participate in Cisco's flexible vacation time off program, which has no defined limit on how much vacation time eligible employees may use (subject to availability and some business limitations) 80 hours of sick time off provided on hire date and each January 1st thereafter, and up to 80 hours ofunused sick timecarried forwardfrom one calendar yearto the next Additional paid time away may be requested to deal with critical or emergency issues for family members Optional 10 paid days per full calendar year to volunteer For non-sales roles, employees are also eligible to earn annual bonuses subject to Cisco's policies. Employees on sales plans earn performance-based incentive pay on top of their base salary, which is split between quota and non-quota components, subject to the applicable Cisco plan. For quota-based incentive pay, Cisco typically pays as follows: .75% of incentive target for each 1% of revenue attainment up to 50% of quota; 1.5% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 50% and 75%; 1% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 75% and 100%; and Once performance exceeds 100% attainment, incentive rates are at or above 1% for each 1% of attainment with no cap on incentive compensation. For non-quota-based sales performance elements such as strategic sales objectives, Cisco may pay 0% up to 125% of target. Cisco sales plans do not have a minimum threshold of performance for sales incentive compensation to be paid. The applicable full salary ranges for this position, by specific state, are listed below: New York City Metro Area: $181,000.00 - $270,300.00 Non-Metro New York state & Washington state: $165,300.00 - $240,600.00 * For quota-based sales roles on Cisco's sales plan, the ranges provided in this posting include base pay and sales target incentive compensation combined. ** Employees in Illinois, whether exempt or non-exempt, will participate in a unique time off program to meet local requirements.