Senior Manager, Machine Learning Engineer - ML Ops

Location: San Jose, California, US

Area of Interest

Compensation Range

USD - USD

Job Type

Professional

Software Development

Job Id

Applications are accepted until further notice

Who We Are

The Cisco’s AI team consists of AI researchers, and software developers who collaborate to build innovative products and platforms for Cisco. We are motivated by t

About the Role

We are seeking a highly experienced Senior Engineering Manager to lead teams building, deploying, and optimizing Large Language Model (LLM)-based applications, with a strong emphasis on LLMOps (LLMoperations), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines, and scalable production systems. This role involves managing cross-functional engineers, collaborating closely with product, ML research, and infrastructure teams, and ensuring the successful delivery of robust, secure, and efficient AI-powered systems.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and grow a high-performing engineering team focused on LLM applications and infrastructure.
• Foster a culture of engineering excellence, continuous learning, and innovation.
• Drive team performance through mentoring, goal-setting, and technical guidance.
• Design and oversee scalable LLMOps pipelines including fine-tuning, evaluation, deployment, monitoring, and optimization of large language models.
• Work closely with ML researchers to transition experimental models into production.
• Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
• Oversee the design and implementation of RAG pipelines including vector database management, chunking strategies, embedding selection, retrieval tuning, and relevance evaluation.
• Optimize latency, accuracy, and context window handling for high-traffic LLM services.
• Own architectural decisions for high-availability, low-latency systems powering generative AI applications.
• Collaborate with infrastructure and DevOps teams on scaling inference workloads (e.g., with GPU clusters, model quantization, caching, and sharding).
• Cross-Functional Collaboration
• Work with product, design, and data science to define requirements, translate business needs into engineering tasks, and prioritize effectively.
• Maintain high communication standards across teams, ensuring alignment and transparency.
• Quality, Security, and Governance
• Champion model observability, incident response, prompt versioning, and feedback loops.
• Ensure responsible AI practices and data governance are followed.

Qualifications

• Required
• 8+ years of software engineering experience, with 3+ years in engineering management or technical leadership roles.
• Proven track record of shipping production-grade ML/LLM systems.
• Strong understanding of LLMs, fine-tuning, prompt engineering, vector databases (e.g., Pinecone, Weaviate, FAISS), and RAG patterns.
• Experience with cloud-native architectures (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and container orchestration (Kubernetes).
• Proficiency in Python and familiarity with AI/ML frameworks such as PyTorch, Transformers, LangChain, or similar.
• Preferred
• Experience managing or working with multi-modal or multi-agent systems.
• Exposure to regulatory or compliance frameworks for ML systems (e.g., GDPR, SOC 2).
• Hands-on experience with observability and evaluation tools for LLMs.

#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.

We understand our outstanding opportunity to bring communities together and at the heart of that is our people. One-third of Cisconians collaborate in our 30 employee resource organizations, called Inclusive Communities, to connect, foster belonging, learn to be informed allies, and make a difference. Dedicated paid time off to volunteer-80 hours each year-allows us to give back to causes we are passionate about, and nearly 86% do!

Our purpose, driven by our people, is what makes us the worldwide leader in technology that powers the internet. Helping our customers reimagine their applications, secure their enterprise, transform their infrastructure, and meet their sustainability goals is what we do best. We ensure that every step we take is a step towards a more inclusive future for all. Take your next step and be you, with us.

#CiscoAIJobs

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.

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