The posting
The application window is expected to close on: 10/18/2026
Meet the Team
AI Platform Group Office of the CTO: We are the Forward Deployed Engineering team for Cisco’s AI-native portfolio. Our mission is to accelerate the adoption of Cloud Control, AI Canvas, AI Studio, and AI Defense through a high-velocity, customer-led "skunkworks" model. We operate as Product Market Fit (PMF) Pathfinders. We embed with customers, understanding how they operate and what they actually use rather than mearly hypothesize. We are experimentalists, prototype builders, and trailblazers who ship, measure, and prove value through direct, real-time code deployment.
Your Impact
Join our team as a Principal Forward Deployed Engineer to shape the future of our AI-powered platforms. You will:
- Embed for Innovation: Deploy directly into high-impact customer environments to observe complex workflows, identify friction points, and build rapid prototypes that validate product-market fit.
- Bridge Research to Production: Lead research-to-code initiatives, applying deep domain expertise in networking and security to solve real-world problems while ensuring prototypes are ready for production hardening.
- Data-Driven Roadmap Influence: Partner with Product Management to drive verified usage metrics, ensuring high-priority features are backed by actual engagement data.
- Architect Enterprise Solutions: Collaborate with core engineering to transition your prototypes into secure, multi-tenant, and scalable services that support Cisco’s global customer base.
- Technical Consultation: Act as an internal industry expert, influencing Cisco’s technical leaders and product strategy by translating complex customer challenges into elegant, scalable software solutions.
- Culture Architect: Lead a "customer-first" engineering mindset within the AI Platform group, coaching teams on rapid iteration, minimizing silos, and maintaining high velocity while adhering to enterprise compliance standards.
Minimum Qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in STEM and 15+ years of relevant experience, or Master's degree in STEM and 12+ years of relevant experience and or PhD in STEM 8+years of relevant experience or equivalent related work experience
- Experience building and operating scalable, highly distributed multi-tenant systems with strict isolation and security boundaries.
- Experience in building external-facing developer platforms or infrastructure-focused products.
- Prior experience in end-to-end system design (including observability, failure handling, and ergonomics) and the implementation of complex authorization models such as RBAC, ABAC, or policy-based enforcement.
Preferred Qualifications:
- An AI-first mindset paired with the ability to exercise sound technical judgment and decompose vague, complex problems into well-scoped, actionable deliverables.
- Experience building shared infrastructure, abstractions, and "paved roads" that enhance productivity across engineering teams.
- Proficiency in spec-driven and schema-driven development, including the use of code generation, strongly typed API contracts, and implementation traceability.
- Understanding of the unique architecture and operational constraints associated with both SaaS and on-premise deployment models.
- Ability to mentor immediate team members while effectively driving technical decision-making across cross-functional and cross-organizational boundaries.
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 $296,300.00 to $374,800.00 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. The full salary range for certain locations is listed below. For locations not listed below, the recruiter can share more details about compensation for the role in your location during the hiring process.
U.S. employees are offered benefits, subject to Cisco’s plan eligibility rules, which include medical, dental and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution, paid parental leave, short and long-term disability coverage, and basic life insurance. Please see the Cisco careers site to discover more benefits and perks. Employees may be eligible to receive grants of Cisco restricted stock units, which vest following continued employment with Cisco for defined periods of time.
U.S. employees are eligible for paid time away as described below, subject to Cisco’s policies:
- 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, and 4 paid days off for personal wellness determined by Cisco
- Non-exempt employees** receive 16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year, accrued at rate of 4.92 hours per pay period for full-time employees
- Exempt employees participate in Cisco’s flexible vacation time off program, which has 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
- Additional paid time away may be requested to deal with critical or emergency issues for family members
- Optional 10 paid days per full calendar year to volunteer
For non-sales roles, employees are also eligible to earn annual bonuses subject to Cisco’s policies.
Employees on sales plans earn performance-based incentive pay on top of their base salary, which is split between quota and non-quota components, subject to the applicable Cisco plan. 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 0% up to 125% of target. Cisco sales plans do not have a minimum threshold of performance for sales incentive compensation to be paid.
The applicable full salary ranges for this position, by specific state, are listed below:
New York City Metro Area:
$296,300.00 - $431,000.00
Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:
$263,700.00 - $383,500.00
* For quota-based sales roles on Cisco’s sales plan, the ranges provided in this posting include base pay and sales target incentive compensation combined.
** Employees in Illinois, whether exempt or non-exempt, will participate in a unique time off program to meet local requirements.
