Cisco · 2 days ago
Senior Staff Applied AI Scientist
San Diego, CA
Full-time
Hybrid
Senior Level, Lead/Staff
$228K/yr - $289K/yr
5+ years expCisco, through its subsidiary Splunk, is focused on building a safer digital world with advanced AI technologies. The Senior Staff Applied AI Scientist will lead research and deployment of AI systems for intelligent code generation, shaping the future of developer experiences and driving innovations in AI capabilities.
Communications InfrastructureEnterprise SoftwareHardwareSoftware
Responsibilities
Own the full lifecycle of research and deployment of next-generation AI systems for intelligent code generation, including model design, evaluation, and production rollout
Define the scientific roadmap for agentic GenAI, enabling models that not only generate code but reason, plan, self-correct, and integrate with tools and runtime environments
Advance the state of the art in DSL-aware code synthesis, shaping how future developer experiences are powered by LLMs across interactive and automation-driven workflows
Drive efficiency and scalability of distributed training and inference pipelines to balance performance, latency, and cost — without compromising accuracy or reliability
Collaborate closely with engineering and product to ensure AI breakthroughs translate quickly and safely into high-impact customer capabilities
Mentor and elevate a high-performing research organization, fostering a culture of scientific rigor, creativity, and delivery excellence
Shape long-term AI strategy and innovation, influencing architectural decisions, technical investments, and roadmap direction across the GenAI organization
Qualification
Required
PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, or a related technical field and 5+ years of post-doctoral or industry research experience; or a Master's degree in a related field and 10+ years of progressively responsible research experience
Proven expertise in at least one of the following: Large language models for program synthesis or formal languages, Multi-step planning or agentic AI for developer workflows
Strong proficiency in Python and deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow
Demonstrated experience translating research prototypes into production systems, including model deployment, optimization, and evaluation
Strong foundation in experimental design, benchmarking, reproducibility, evaluation metrics, and scientific documentation
Preferred
LLMs for Code Generation — Experience with training, fine-tuning, or adapting models such as Code-LLaMA, CodeT5, StarCoder, or GPT-based code models for program synthesis, refactoring, unit test generation, static/dynamic analysis, or domain-specific languages (DSLs)
Domain-Specialized Modeling — Background building generative models that target structured languages (e.g., SQL, DSLs, configuration languages, or proprietary query languages/SPL)
Agentic AI & Tool Use — Experience designing agents that plan, call tools/APIs, self-reflect, or execute code to iteratively refine solutions
Structured Reasoning & Planning — Proven success applying techniques such as chain-of-thought, self-debugging, constrained decoding, or reinforcement learning for code-oriented tasks
Large-Scale Training & Optimization — Experience with distributed training, efficient inference (quantization, LoRA, caching, batching), and cost-aware scaling
MLOps & Continuous Evaluation — Familiarity with automated model retraining, dataset curation, synthetic data pipelines, eval harnesses, and model health monitoring
Research Leadership — Publications in premier AI/ML venues (NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, AAAI, KDD, etc.) and/or recognized contributions in the code-gen / LLM community
Benefits
Medical, dental and vision insurance
401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution
Paid parental leave
Short and long-term disability coverage
Basic life insurance
10 paid holidays per full calendar year
1 floating holiday for non-exempt employees
1 paid day off for employee’s birthday
Paid year-end holiday shutdown
4 paid days off for personal wellness determined by Cisco
16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year
80 hours of sick time off provided on hire date
Up to 80 hours of unused sick time carried forward from one calendar year to 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
Employees are also eligible to earn annual bonuses subject to Cisco’s policies
Company
Cisco
Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, telecommunications equipment, and other technology services and products. It is a sub-organization of Cisco Press.
10001+ employees
H1B Sponsorship
Cisco has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (1238)
2024 (1231)
2023 (1273)
2022 (2127)
2021 (1991)
2020 (1173)
Funding
Current Stage
Public CompanyTotal Funding
unknown1990-02-13IPO
Leadership Team
Chuck Robbins
Chair and CEO
Carl Solder
Chief Technology Officer - Cisco System Australia/New Zealand
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