Lead Machine Learning Engineer

Application window is expected to close on 6/17/2024
AI at Cisco
With Cisco, you're not just embracing the future - you're helping create it. We are focused on integrating AI into our solutions to transform collaboration, security, networking, observability, and more. We are innovating ethical AI products and infrastructure that enable our customers to stay ahead of cyberattacks, predict and prevent network outages, and make team meetings more productive. Our extensive data sets and broad customer reach means limitless possibilities for you to build impactful AI solutions that solve a wide array of real-world problems. Join us at Cisco where you will innovate with top AI experts and be a part of our mission to power an inclusive future for all.
AI in the Business Unit
The Cisco Security group includes such industry leading security suites and products as Cisco Secure Access, Identity Intelligence, Duo, XDR, Cisco Security AI, Talos, and more. We are using machine learning and GenAI across our products to simplify security, prevent sophisticated attacks, and ensure the secure use of large language models (LLMs).
In Security, we are building AI-enhanced cybersecurity for better outcomes, combining AI with the breadth of Cisco telemetry across the network, private and public cloud infrastructure, applications, internet, email, and endpoints. With Security AI, we make it simple to use natural language instruction and interact with GenAI - from deploying and managing firewall policies to streamlining incident response. With Duo, we are creating extensive machine learning and analytics to detect and block suspicious users. We are harnessing our rich security expertise in conjunction with AIML to transform the way we assist, augment, and automate security efforts for our customers! We need your help to tip the scale in favor of defenders and enable enterprises everywhere to cancel bad actors.
Your Impact on the Team
You will be a part of our Cisco Security Innovation team within the security business group. This team incubates ideas that turn into the future of Cisco's innovative security solutions. You will play a pivotal role in driving five strategic AI pillars for our latest groundbreaking innovation, Cisco Hypershield. You will bring your expertise in deep learning and GenAI models to help us build out and improve AI for assistance, anomaly-detection, policy generation, language translation, generating exploit shields and more! Here is how you will help us achieve our AI objectives...

• Develop and implement advanced machine learning models, including adapting neural network architectures or creating novel ones to address challenges.
• Drive the training, validation, and fine-tuning of models, developing methods to identify performance metrics in security.
• Implement robust software systems for integrating and maintaining machine learning models
• Collaborate with software engineering teams to design primary deployment strategies for machine learning models into security systems.
• Establish and maintain best practices for machine learning and security operations, including clear documentation of models and procedures.
• Analyze and extract significant patterns in high-dimensional data spaces using advanced techniques.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in STEM with 7+ years of relevant experience (or) Master's degree in STEM with 4+ years of relevant experience (or) PhD in STEM with 1+ years of relevant experience
• 4+ years of experience coding in Python, R, Java, C++ or similar
• Experience using machine learning libraries (e.g, TensorFlow, PyTorch, Scikit-Learn etc.) for model selection, tuning, data visualization and/or data preprocessing
• Experience using techniques like feature engineering, clustering or similar for extracting patterns from data

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience developing Large Language Models and Natural Language Processing (LLM's and NLP)
• Experience in mode tuning using RLHF, DPO, LoRA
• Experience supporting firewalls, secure web gateways, and/or SASE/SSE
• Knowledgeable of ML algorithms and use cases including any prior exposure to MLOps

Why Cisco?
Cisco has embarked on an AI journey with immense potential, powered by an innovative and diverse work environment that encourages out-of-the-box thinking. Our strategic AI acquisitions paired with our access to extensive data positions us to have a substantial influence in the AI space in the short term and beyond. At Cisco, we believe in "one company, many careers" and with investment in multiple key AI initiatives across our business, employees have unique opportunities to broaden their experience and skills. Our award-winning culture is proof that a diverse team brings a wealth of perspectives that drive better decision-making, more inclusive products, and a richer work environment for everyone.
If you are motivated about shaping the future with AI, are eager to work with the newest technologies, and are ready to grow on a team that values every individual, Cisco is where you can turn your aspirations into achievements!
Message to applicants applying to work in the U.S. and/or Canada:When available, the salary range posted for this position reflects the projected hiring range for new hire, full-time salaries in U.S. and/or Canada locations, not including equity or benefits. For non-sales roles the hiring ranges reflect base salary only; employees are also eligible to receive annual bonuses. Hiring ranges for sales positions include base and incentive compensation target. Individual pay is determined by the candidate's hiring location and additional factors, including but not limited to skillset, experience, and relevant education, certifications, or training. Applicants may not be eligible for the full salary range based on their U.S. or Canada hiring location. The recruiter can share more details about compensation for the role in your location during the hiring process.U.S. employees have access to quality medical, dental and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution, short and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance and numerous wellbeing offerings. Employees receive up to twelve paid holidays per calendar year, which includes one floating holiday, plus a day off for their birthday. Employees accrue up to 20 days of Paid Time Off (PTO) each year and have access to paid time away to deal with critical or emergency issues without tapping into their PTO. We offer additional paid time to volunteer and give back to the community. Employees are also able to purchase company stock through our Employee Stock Purchase Program.Employees on sales plans earn performance-based incentive pay on top of their base salary, which is split between quota and non-quota components. 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 up to 125% of target. Cisco sales plans do not have a minimum threshold of performance for sales incentive compensation to be paid.