Gen AI Senior Software Engineer

Application window closes: 12/30/2026

About the role

The Cisco IT team is changing the way we run Cisco's operations by leveraging the power of technology, the best of business processes, and utilizing outstanding data insights. We are redefining how Cisco designs and delivers the employee, partner, and customer experience based on a culture that values customer service. We strive for speed and agility in all that we do. Above all else, we are kind to each other. We aspire to be an industry-leading IT team, with a strong focus on AI and security to differentiate us and foster innovation.

You will work with our amazing Enterprise Data & Platforms team as part of Cisco IT organization. You will build solutions and support them across our portfolio of capabilities, primarily focusing on enabling AI/ML and Generative AI capabilities in a multi-functional team setup. You will collaborate with other engineers, architects, and organization leadership.

We are looking for a highly skilled Senior Software Engineer with Gen AI skills to lead the development, deployment and management of Gen AI based applications and services, with a focus on Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) and Agentic AI. This role requires expertise in developing and supporting large-scale GenAI applications, with a strong emphasis on AI-first engineering. The successful candidate will have extensive experience in responsible AI practices, including toxicity screening and ensuring regulatory compliance across AI solutions.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, deploy, and optimize high-performance, scalable Generative AI frameworks for on-premise and cloud environments.
• Architect secure workflows for end-to-end document processing, including ingestion, classification, retrieval, and automated fine-tuning pipelines.
• Implement robust data security, encryption, and access control protocols to ensure compliance with organizational and regulatory standards.
• Optimize model architecture and hyperparameters, exploring advanced techniques and fine-tuning strategies, to achieve superior performance and address scalability challenges.
• Integrate responsible AI practices, including toxicity screening, bias detection, and ethical auditing, to ensure safe and compliant model deployment.
• Collaborate with cross-functional, legal, and governance teams to maintain alignment with evolving privacy and security frameworks.
• Monitor and maintain AI infrastructure with real-time alerting to ensure system stability and performance.
• Stay current with advancements in Generative AI, document security, and ethical AI development to drive continuous infrastructure improvement.

Requirements

• Bachelor's in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related STEM field with 10 years of related experience OR Master's + 7 years of related experience.
• 3+ years hands-on experience in Gen AI engineering on production use cases.
• Proficiency in software engineering best practices, design and development of containerized large-scale distributed applications, and use of DevOps and CI/CD tools.
• Proficiency in Python programming language or similar.
• Hands-on experience with Gen AI frameworks such as LangChain, LlamaIndex, LangSmith, AI operators, with proficiency in Python for AI operations.
• Experience with vector databases, such as Weaviate, Pinecone, Milvus or similar.

Qualifications

• Master's Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related STEM field.
• Experience with design and development of advanced Agentic AI workflows orchestration.

Benefits

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.

• Medical, dental and vision insurance
• 401(k) plan with Cisco matching contribution
• Paid parental leave
• Short and long-term disability coverage
• Basic life insurance
• Grants of Cisco restricted stock units (vesting over defined periods)
• 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 determined by Cisco
• Non-exempt employees: 16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year (accrued at 4.92 hours per pay period for full-time)
• Exempt employees: flexible vacation time off program (no defined limit, subject to availability and business limitations)
• 80 hours of sick time off provided on hire date and each January 1st thereafter, with up to 80 hours of unused sick time carried forward
• Additional paid time away for critical or emergency family issues
• Optional 10 paid days per full calendar year to volunteer
• Annual bonuses for non-sales roles (subject to Cisco policies)
• Employees in Illinois participate in a unique time off program to meet local requirements

Pay

The starting salary range posted for this position is $169,800.00 to $214,800.00 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.

Applicable full salary ranges by specific state:

• New York City Metro Area: $203,000.00 - $297,400.00
• Non-Metro New York State & Washington State: $181,000.00 - $264,600.00

For quota-based sales roles on Cisco's sales plan, the ranges provided include base pay and sales target incentive compensation combined. 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.