Hiring: Principal AI Researcher Company: Cisco Location: San Francisco, CA Job Posted Time: 2026-09-17 04:21:00 Employment Type: Full-time Target Skills & Keywords : AI, Deep Learning, Machine Learning, PyTorch, Reinforcement Learning About the job Experience: •8+ years of relevant research experience, or equivalent demonstrated research impact. •3+ years of hands-on experience building, training, and optimizing deep learning models using PyTorch, JAX, or comparable frameworks, including at least 2 models trained and evaluated at production or research scale. •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. Required Skills: •As a Principal AI Researcher, you will lead research on world models and learning-based approaches for autonomous networks. •Develop world models that learn the state and dynamics of large-scale network environments. •Build models that predict network behavior and the impact of configuration and operational changes. •Develop model-based reinforcement learning approaches for network optimization, troubleshooting, and remediation. •Build simulation environments for training and evaluating models and agents before they operate on production networks. •Explore new approaches to representation learning, planning, and sequential decision-making for network environments. •Develop methods to evaluate the reliability and safety of learned policies before deployment. •Interface directly with networking experts and engineers to evaluate research on real network data and systems. Publish research at leading AI/ML conferences and contribute to open-source projects. Qualifications: •Masters in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Autonomous Systems, or a related field, with 8+ years of relevant research experience, or equivalent demonstrated research impact. •Research experience in one or more of world models, reinforcement learning, model-based RL, representation learning, planning, or sequential decision-making. •Demonstrated track record of research through publications at leading AI/ML conferences or equivalent research contributions. •Demonstrated capacity to take a research problem from idea through experimentation and working prototype. •We are Cisco, and our power starts with you. •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. Compensation: •$296,300 - $374,800 / year •And/or Canada locations, not including incentive compensation*, equity, or benefits Interested candidates, please apply directly through the job posting on company's career page or try via AI auto apply on this platform. Don't miss this opportunity to join a forward-thinking team!