Senior Machine Learning Engineer, NLP

Apply
  • Location:
    Offsite, San Jose, California, US
  • Alternate Location
    Offsite, US
  • Area of Interest
    Webex (Collaboration)
  • Compensation Range
    146800 USD - 244700 USD
  • Job Type
    Professional
  • Technology Interest
    AI or Artificial Intelligence, Cloud & AI (DCN & Compute), Services & Software, Software Development, Webex (Collaboration)
  • Job Id
    1435420

The application window is expected to close on: April 14, 2025.

Meet the Team

Cisco Webex is the world's #1 business collaboration and customer engagement platform. It is used across all industries in the world being used to support governments, business, education, and more, including use by 85% of Fortune 500 business.

The workplace of the future will be powered by AI, and we, Collaboration AI, is the team responsible for building AI/ML intelligent experiences within Cisco’s Webex portfolio. The team is made up of multiple major AI fronts to enrich the collaboration use cases. This, in the order of processing pipeline, includes audio codec technologies, automatic speech recognition (ASR), text-to-speech (TTS), natural language processing (NLP) using and training LLMs and beyond, and gen-AI evaluation methodologies, both metric-based and subjective testing. In addition, videos are empowered via computer vision (CV) and additional contextual information by employee graphs, and much more.

We aim to build the next-generation AI solutions in collaboration software, devices, and APIs - from digitizing the in-meeting experience, enhancing distributed team efficiency and improving all aspects of people connection.

What You’ll Do

As a Senior Machine Learning Engineer on the Collaboration AI team, you will innovate NLP/LLM solutions for Webex products.

You are expected to be a main contributor in our AI technology space and bridge the gap between the fast evolving open-source AI landscape and the Webex user experience. You'll drive technological advancement while bridging cutting-edge AI developments with practical user experiences. Your responsibility will include, but not limited to, the following:

  • Explore and implement next-gen LLM technologies, focusing on retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), AI agents, and agentic workflows.
  • Fast prototype innovative concepts and create viable paths to production.
  • Conduct applied ML research and follow the systematic methodology: Establish benchmarking methods, evaluate against baselines, perform ablation studies, and deliver actionable recommendations.
  • Balance technical trade-offs to determine optimal production solutions
  • Collaborate with system engineers, product managers, and client teams to drive productization
  • Level up the team's AI/ML savviness as an AI knowledge catalyst.

Who You’ll Work With

You’ll join a small, high-caliber team of ML specialists, large scale systems pros, NLP, Speech, and CV practitioners and researchers, product gurus, customer artiste, and world-class designers who are all low ego and humble, and passionate about the future brought by AI. We adapt quickly, continuously improve, and deliver high-impact results. We’re not only aiming to build AI applications; we strive to build the best applications of AI the world has ever seen.

Many of our engineers have founded their own startups prior to forming Collaboration AI, and they bring a wide and diverse set of industry experience and expertise with them. We draw on this well of experiences every day as we collaborate on our own product, tech stack, and go to market strategy. We're highly collaborative, committed to building great things, and consider it a privilege to learn from each other every day.

Minimum Requirements

  • M.S. or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Mathematics, or a related field. 
  • 5+ years of experience with Natural Language Processing      
  • 2+ years of experience implementing LLM technologies, systems, and applications
  • Proficiency with deep learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, JAX, Keras, TensorFlow), ML ecosystems (e.g., Hugging Face) and production Python programming skills  

Preferred Requirements

  • Proven experience deploying NLP/LLM solutions in production environments
  • Strong judgment to assess practical value versus industry hype
  • Demonstrated persistence in problem-solving complex challenges
  • Deep intellectual curiosity in emerging AI technologies 
  • Engineering mentality at heart
  • Research contributions in NLP (publications, patents, presentations) are a plus

#WeAreCisco

#WeAreCisco where every individual brings their unique skills and perspectives together to pursue our purpose of powering an inclusive future for all.

Our passion is connection—we celebrate our employees’ diverse set of backgrounds and focus on unlocking potential. Cisconians often experience one company, many careers where learning and development are encouraged and supported at every stage. Our technology, tools, and culture pioneered hybrid work trends, allowing all to not only give their best, but be their best.

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 (for non-exempt employees), plus a day off for their birthday. Non-Exempt new hires accrue up to 16 days of vacation time off each year, at a rate of 4.92 hours per pay period. Exempt new hires participate in Cisco’s flexible Vacation Time Off policy, which does not place a defined limit on how much vacation time eligible employees may use, but is subject to availability and some business limitations. All new hires are eligible for Sick Time Off subject to Cisco’s Sick Time Off Policy and will have eighty (80) hours of sick time off provided on their hire date and on January 1st of each year thereafter.  Up to 80 hours of unused sick time will be carried forward from one calendar year to the next such that the maximum number of sick time hours an employee may have available is 160 hours. Employees in Illinois have a unique time off program designed specifically with local requirements in mind. All employees also have access to paid time away to deal with critical or emergency issues. We offer additional paid time to volunteer and give back to the community.

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.

Share

Apply