Architect – AI / Agentic Automation

About the role

The Cisco IQ and Validation team is building the next generation of intelligent, AI-driven network validation and automation capabilities. We combine cloud-native software engineering, Agentic AI, LLMs, MCP, A2A, and network automation to enable customers to validate and operate complex environments more intelligently.

Meet the Team

The team brings together architects, senior engineers, software engineers, AI specialists, and domain experts working across a global organization. We are building foundational capabilities that will enable AI agents to reason, interact with enterprise tools, and safely execute validation workflows at scale.

Your Impact

Define and drive the architecture for AI decision systems, Agentic AI platforms, and enterprise-scale validation and automation capabilities within Cisco IQ and Validation. Establish technical direction for agent architectures, MCP and A2A integrations, agent routing, tool orchestration, workflow execution, approval-gated actions, and distributed event-driven systems. Guide architecture across backend services, APIs, databases, Kubernetes, cloud infrastructure, observability, and production operations to ensure solutions are scalable, secure, reliable, and maintainable. Drive technical alignment across Engineering, Product, UX, Security, Infrastructure, QA, and partner teams and provide technical leadership for complex, ambiguous, cross-functional initiatives. Mentor senior engineers and technical leads while influencing platform strategy, engineering standards, and the long-term evolution of Validation.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in STEM, 8+ years of software engineering experience designing and building complex backend, distributed, automation, or platform systems.
• Experience with Python, Go, Rust, TypeScript, React, Node.js, .NET, PostgreSQL, Redis, Kafka, or similar technologies.
• Experience designing distributed systems using APIs, databases, event-driven architectures, workflow systems, or cloud-native technologies.
• Experience developing or architecting Generative AI, LLM, Agentic AI, MCP, A2A, or AI-enabled automation systems.
• Experience with Kubernetes, Docker, CI/CD, cloud platforms, and production software operations.
• Experience designing advanced multi-agent architectures, including planner/executor patterns, agent handoffs, state management, checkpointing, retries, cancellation, or durable workflows.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience designing AI quality, evaluation, observability, and governance frameworks.
• Experience with network automation, device connectivity, validation platforms, infrastructure automation, or enterprise network systems.
• Experience leading architecture across multiple engineering teams and influencing technical strategy, standards, and platform roadmaps.
• Experience architecting MCP and A2A systems, including capability discovery, tool schemas, authentication, context propagation, streaming, approval gates, auditability, and failure handling.

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

The starting salary range posted for this position is $186,900.00 to $267,700.00 and reflects the projected salary range for new hires in this position in U.S. and/or Canada locations, not including incentive compensation*, equity, or benefits. 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.

U.S. Employee Benefits

• Medical, dental and vision insurance
• A 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, plus 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
• 16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year, accrued at a rate of 4.92 hours per pay period for full-time employees
• Flexible vacation time off program for exempt employees, with 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 of unused sick time carried forward from one calendar year to the next
• Optional 10 paid days per full calendar year to volunteer

Sales Role Benefits

• Annual bonuses subject to Cisco’s policies
• Performance-based incentive pay on top of base salary, which is split between quota and non-quota components
• Quota-based incentive pay: .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
• 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

Illinois Employees

Employees in Illinois, whether exempt or non-exempt, will participate in a unique time off program to meet local requirements.