AI/ML Engineer

Cisco – AI Innovation Team (Shaja Arul) Role:ML Engineer (Onshore preferred, Offshore possible) Group Info Shaja is part of the AI Innovation team within CX (Cisco’s largest business unit). Leading efforts to build foundational/domain-specific LLMs in the Cisco context. Early stages of team building — currently has a small core team , wants to add 1–2 hands-on contributors . Project Core initiative :Create Cisco-specific language models (LLMs) . Initial use case :security assessment. Future scope :broader business applications across Cisco. Candidate Requirements Mandatory criteria Formal background in Computer Science (not just “recent AI enthusiasts”). Hands-on role : No management responsibilities. Looking for junior to mid-level practitioners . 100% technical focus. Experience with building LLMs (small, medium, or large). Understanding of foundational aspects is key. Good-to-have Onsite availability in San Jose (ideally 3 days/week ). Strong collaboration with local team. Location Preference Onshore strongly preferred (San Jose commute). Offshore acceptable fallback if no good onshore candidates. Budget $100–150/hour (bill rate). Will map into quarterly budget as needed. Interview Process Take-home assignment (~1 hr, candidate may use Google/resources). Interview 1 :Hands-on coding + review of assignment. Interview 2 :Final interview with Shaja. Optional :If unclear outcome, additional interview with Shubha (VP) . Max of 3 rounds in total. Next Steps (Agreed Actions) Zahra to draft JD (based on notes) and send to Shaja for edits. BayOne to begin pipelining candidates immediately. Zahra to share TechScore screening details with Shaja (extra pre-screening step). Possible alignment call with interview panel (10 mins) to avoid misalignment in expectations. Ongoing comms via WebEx for clarifications.