Cisco Systems, Inc.
Principal Applied AI Scientist
Cisco Systems, Inc., San Jose, California, United States, 95199
Principal Applied AI Scientist
Meet the Team
Splunk, a Cisco company, is building a safer, more resilient digital world with an end‑to‑end, full‑stack platform designed for hybrid, multicloud environments. Join the AI Models team at Splunk, where we advance the state of AI for high‑volume, realtime, multimodal machine‑generated data – including logs, time series, traces, and events. We combine deep AI research expertise with the scale and operational excellence of Splunk and Cisco’s global engineering capabilities. Our work spans networking, security, observability, and customer experience – designing and deploying foundation models that enhance reliability, strengthen security, prevent downtime, and deliver predictive insights across Splunk Observability, Security, and Platform at enterprise scale. You’ll be part of a culture that values technical excellence, impact‑driven innovation, and cross‑functional collaboration – all within a flexible, growth‑oriented environment.
Your Impact
Set and Drive Vision: Define and champion the strategic vision for AI and foundation models across Splunk and Cisco platforms, shaping the research and technology roadmap to anticipate and address industry‑defining challenges.
Architect and Lead Breakthroughs: Lead the end‑to‑end lifecycle of research, design, and deployment for large‑scale foundation models targeting machine‑generated data, with deep focus on logs and complementary modalities (time series, traces, events).
Influence at Scale: Partner with executive leadership, engineering, product, and data science teams to ensure AI solutions align with broader organizational objectives, product strategies, and customer needs.
Mentorship and Thought Leadership: Cultivate organizational excellence by mentoring senior technical talent, fostering research communities, and driving best practices in AI across global teams.
Foster Innovation: Embed cutting‑edge research and technological advances into products, driving sustained competitive advantage and transformation at enterprise scale.
Minimum Qualifications
PhD in Computer Science, or related quantitative field, plus 8+ years of industry research experience.
Proven track record in at least one of the following areas: large language modeling for both structured and unstructured data, deep‑learning‑based time series modeling, advanced anomaly detection, and multimodality modeling.
Solid proficiency in Python and deep learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow).
Experience translating research ideas into production systems.
Preferred Qualifications
Deep NLP & Domain‑Adapted LLMs: Background in building and adapting large‑scale language models (e.g., T5, BERT, LLaMA, GPTs) for specialized domains including structured/unstructured logs, text, and event sequences.
Log Analytics Expertise – In‑depth knowledge of structured/unstructured system logs, event‑sequence analysis, anomaly detection, and root‑cause identification.
Advanced Anomaly Detection – Experience creating robust, scalable approaches (statistical, deep learning, or hybrid) for high‑volume, realtime logs data.
Multi‑Modal AI Modeling – Strong track record fusing logs, time series, traces, tabular data, and graphs for foundation models tackling complex operational insights.
Large‑Scale Training & Optimization – Experience optimizing model architectures, distributed training pipelines, and inference efficiency to minimize cost and latency while preserving accuracy.
MLOps & Continuous Learning – Fluency in automated retraining, drift detection, incremental updates, and production monitoring of ML models.
Strong Research Track Record – Publications in top AI/ML conferences or journals (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, AAAI, CVPR, ACL, KDD) demonstrating contributions to state‑of‑the‑art methods and real‑world applications.
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.
Compensation and Benefits (U.S. and/or Canada) Starting salary range: $291,500.00 to $369,100.00 – reflects the projected salary range for new hires in this position, not including incentive compensation, equity, or benefits. Individual pay is determined by hiring location, market conditions, job‑related skillset, experience, qualifications, education, certifications, and/or training.
U.S. employees are offered benefits, including medical, dental and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan with Cisco matching, paid parental leave, short‑ and long‑term disability coverage, basic life insurance, and potential restricted stock units. In addition, employees may be eligible for paid holidays, vacation, sick time, and optional volunteer days. Specifics vary by location and employee status.
For non‑sales roles, employees may be eligible to earn annual bonuses subject to Cisco policies. For sales plans, incentive compensation is incentives based on quota attainment with details per Cisco’s sales plan.
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Your Impact
Set and Drive Vision: Define and champion the strategic vision for AI and foundation models across Splunk and Cisco platforms, shaping the research and technology roadmap to anticipate and address industry‑defining challenges.
Architect and Lead Breakthroughs: Lead the end‑to‑end lifecycle of research, design, and deployment for large‑scale foundation models targeting machine‑generated data, with deep focus on logs and complementary modalities (time series, traces, events).
Influence at Scale: Partner with executive leadership, engineering, product, and data science teams to ensure AI solutions align with broader organizational objectives, product strategies, and customer needs.
Mentorship and Thought Leadership: Cultivate organizational excellence by mentoring senior technical talent, fostering research communities, and driving best practices in AI across global teams.
Foster Innovation: Embed cutting‑edge research and technological advances into products, driving sustained competitive advantage and transformation at enterprise scale.
Minimum Qualifications
PhD in Computer Science, or related quantitative field, plus 8+ years of industry research experience.
Proven track record in at least one of the following areas: large language modeling for both structured and unstructured data, deep‑learning‑based time series modeling, advanced anomaly detection, and multimodality modeling.
Solid proficiency in Python and deep learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow).
Experience translating research ideas into production systems.
Preferred Qualifications
Deep NLP & Domain‑Adapted LLMs: Background in building and adapting large‑scale language models (e.g., T5, BERT, LLaMA, GPTs) for specialized domains including structured/unstructured logs, text, and event sequences.
Log Analytics Expertise – In‑depth knowledge of structured/unstructured system logs, event‑sequence analysis, anomaly detection, and root‑cause identification.
Advanced Anomaly Detection – Experience creating robust, scalable approaches (statistical, deep learning, or hybrid) for high‑volume, realtime logs data.
Multi‑Modal AI Modeling – Strong track record fusing logs, time series, traces, tabular data, and graphs for foundation models tackling complex operational insights.
Large‑Scale Training & Optimization – Experience optimizing model architectures, distributed training pipelines, and inference efficiency to minimize cost and latency while preserving accuracy.
MLOps & Continuous Learning – Fluency in automated retraining, drift detection, incremental updates, and production monitoring of ML models.
Strong Research Track Record – Publications in top AI/ML conferences or journals (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, AAAI, CVPR, ACL, KDD) demonstrating contributions to state‑of‑the‑art methods and real‑world applications.
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.
Compensation and Benefits (U.S. and/or Canada) Starting salary range: $291,500.00 to $369,100.00 – reflects the projected salary range for new hires in this position, not including incentive compensation, equity, or benefits. Individual pay is determined by hiring location, market conditions, job‑related skillset, experience, qualifications, education, certifications, and/or training.
U.S. employees are offered benefits, including medical, dental and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan with Cisco matching, paid parental leave, short‑ and long‑term disability coverage, basic life insurance, and potential restricted stock units. In addition, employees may be eligible for paid holidays, vacation, sick time, and optional volunteer days. Specifics vary by location and employee status.
For non‑sales roles, employees may be eligible to earn annual bonuses subject to Cisco policies. For sales plans, incentive compensation is incentives based on quota attainment with details per Cisco’s sales plan.
#J-18808-Ljbffr