Principal Engineer - Applied Science

Principal Engineer - Applied Science

Location:Wallisellen, Switzerland

Area of InterestEngineer - Software

Job TypeProfessional

Technology InterestAI or Artificial Intelligence, Software Development

Job Id1424835

Who We Are

We are a part of the Outshift Group focused on identifying breakthrough emerging solutions that create new markets and businesses for Cisco. We incubate these new opportunities in partnership with our business groups, partners, and other startups. The team also continues to progress Cisco’s important work with Standards bodies and manage research partnerships with leading-edge Universities.

Our organization is anticipating high growth. We are seeking talent with the agility and creativity to explore opportunities and fill in needs as they arise across our teams. Applicants should be seeking a flexible role, in which they not only provide leadership in their primary function, but also contribute in meaningful ways to other projects. We are looking for individuals who are excited about pivoting quickly to different domains that may be outside of their normal scope of responsibilities.

Learn more about us at https://outshift.com

Who You'll Work With

The Outshift team is a highly visible group within Cisco. Outshift focuses on the next wave of innovation by anticipating, investing in, and incubating new technologies and business ventures. You will be part of the incubation team to develop new products and bring them to market in a startup-like environment.

What You'll Do

In this role, you will work in an innovative team, apply, and advance powerful AI technologies in products that make tangible business impacts, create the latest AI-powered user experiences on various platforms, work alongside a committed generative AI product management, software engineering teams gain expertise in the most in-demand AI domains for the future, and contribute to shaping Cisco’s AI strategies for the next decade.

We are building a core dedicated team specialized in applied deep learning in Large Language Models (LLM) and Generative AI, with high visibility to senior leadership and influence on company-wide businesses in this pioneering AI area. We are looking for candidates who are passionate about building innovative technologies to solve real-world problems and have an outstanding technical background in LLMs, or alternately in deep learning, especially natural language processing and multimodal AI, to join our team.

The Impact You’ll Make

If you want the challenge of fast-paced growth, the satisfaction of seeing your thoughtful ideas come to life, and the pride in helping grow a best-in-class AI team, this is the place for you.

Your Responsibilities Will Include

. Drive the Generative AI strategy, adapt various Gen AI models for quality and performance for new products.

. Analyze data to discover patterns, design, develop, evaluate, validate, and build scalable ML models for deep learning and generative AI products

. Develop, implement, and optimize LLMs and generative AI technologies, including training/finetuning and computation optimizations

. Conduct research and development into innovative AI/ML/Gen AI models using state-of-the-art tools and techniques, develop new algorithms and systems for reasoning using text, image, video, audio, and multimodal inputs.

. Collaborate with product managers to understand business requirements, and work with peer engineers and scientists to build prototypes

. Collaborate with software engineers to deploy LLM and other Generative AI models into production environments.

. Stay up to date with the latest advancements in the field of Generative AI

. Test and integrate successful models and algorithms into production systems that operate at very large scale

. Mentor applied scientists and engineers globally and holding Outshift to a high standard of technical rigor and excellence in AI

. Be an enthusiastic and self-motivated collaborator with a can-do attitude

. Be a product evangelist – engage directly with customers and partners, participate, and present in external events and conferences

Minimum Requirements

. Hands-on experience developing, implementing, and optimizing large language models and generative AI technologies, including training/finetuning and computation optimizations.

. Understanding and hands-on experience in natural language processing, computer vision, and multimodal interaction

. Design and build solutions to help customers reach successful pilots, PoCs and production deployments with generative AI and data science technologies.

. Consolidate learnings from these strategic engagements and present to the inbound product management teams to improve their products and platforms

. PhD degree and 10+ years, or Master’s degree and 15+ years in CS, CE, ML, or related fields with a consistent track record of developing and delivering models for enterprise class products that created successful business outcomes.

. 7+ years of experience in Java, C++, Python (or related languages) and hands-on experience with deep learning frameworks

Preferred Skills

. Publications in top-tier deep learning conferences or significant contributions to prominent deep learning repositories

. Practical experience in system design, software development, and production deployment

. Excel in transforming ambiguous requirements into actionable plans with deep learning techniques for problem-solving

. Familiarity with the latest advancements in computer vision and multimodal modeling such as CLIP, DALL-E2, and diffusion models

. Top-tier performance in prestigious deep learning leaderboards or large model-related competitions.

. Having an impressive set of GitHub projects or contributions to open-source technologies

. Strong problem-solving skills and ability to work independently or in a team

. PhD in machine learning, data science, engineering, computer science, mathematics, statistics, or highly quantitative field

Why Cisco?

WeAreCisco. We are all unique, but collectively we bring our talents to work as a team, to develop innovative technology and power a more inclusive, digital future for everyone. How do we do it? Well, for starters – with people like you!

Nearly every internet connection around the world touches Cisco. We’re the Internet’s optimists. Our technology makes sure the data travelling at light speed across connections does so securely, yet it’s not what we make but what we make happen which marks us out. We’re helping those who work in the health service to connect with patients and each other; schools, colleges, and universities to teach in even the most challenging of times. We’re helping businesses of all shapes and size to connect with their employees and customers in new ways, providing people with access to the digital skills they need and connecting the most remote parts of the world – whether through 5G, or otherwise.

We tackle whatever challenges come our way. We have each other’s backs, we recognize our accomplishments, and we grow together. We celebrate and support one another – from big and small things in life to big career moments. And giving back is in our DNA (we get 10 days off each year to do just that).

We know that powering an inclusive future starts with us. Because without diversity and a dedication to equality, there is no moving forward. Our 30 Inclusive Communities, that bring people together around commonalities or passions, are leading the way. Together we’re committed to learning, listening, caring for our communities, whilst supporting the most vulnerable with a collective effort to make this world a better place either with technology, or through our actions.

So, you have colorful hair? Don’t care. Tattoos? Show off your ink. Like polka dots? That’s cool. Pop culture geek? Many of us are. Passion for technology and world changing? Be you, with us! #WeAreCisco

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, plus a day off for their birthday. Employees accrue up to 20 days of Paid Time Off (PTO) each year and have access to paid time away to deal with critical or emergency issues without tapping into their PTO. We offer additional paid time to volunteer and give back to the community. Employees are also able to purchase company stock through our Employee Stock Purchase Program.

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.