Distinguished Engineer – Chief Architect

Responsibilities

• Define the long‑term architecture for Cisco’s enterprise AI platform
• Lead the design and resolution of the organization’s most complex technical challenges
• Set architectural principles and reference patterns that reduce fragmentation
• Create and drive a clear path that converts advanced technical invention into production‑grade platform capabilities
• Partner closely with Platform Engineering to ensure new ideas are designed for production
• Collaborate with Product Management to align technical innovation with CIRCUIT’s long‑term roadmap
• Act as the primary architectural bridge across various engineering and business units
• Lead rapid exploration of emerging areas such as agent collaboration, autonomous planning, proactive workflows, and new interaction models
• Stay closely connected to advances in AI research, open‑source ecosystems, model providers, cloud platforms, and enterprise AI frameworks
• Represent Cisco as a recognized technical authority in enterprise AI

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
• 17+ years of experience in software engineering, technical architecture, distributed systems, AI/ML, or platform engineering; advanced degree may substitute for some experience
• Demonstrated experience as a principal engineer, architect, or senior technical leader in large‑scale enterprise environments
• Proven ability to define technical strategy and drive architectural direction across multiple organizations and business domains
• Strong background of leading complex, multi‑functional technical initiatives from concept through production
• Experience with AI/ML systems, distributed systems, cloud‑native infrastructure, or large‑scale data platforms
• Demonstrated history of architectural influence through standards, patents, publications, technical papers, or comparable contributions
• Deep expertise in generative AI, LLM integration, multi‑agent systems, RAG, evaluation frameworks, and enterprise AI architecture (preferred)
• Experience taking research concepts or early prototypes through productization into secure, scalable, production‑ready offerings (preferred)
• Strong familiarity with model orchestration, memory systems, tool invocation, agent reliability, and enterprise trust controls (preferred)
• Experience in multi‑cloud and hybrid environments, including GCP, AWS, Azure, and on‑prem infrastructure (preferred)