What are the responsibilities and job description for the Senior Staff Data Scientist position at Cisco?
Meet the Team
Join the engineering team building the intelligent backbone of Splunk Observability Cloud. We are committed to leveraging the latest advancements in data science and machine learning to unlock unprecedented value from massive volumes of telemetry—metrics, traces, and logs—at petabyte scale. This role involves researching, developing, and deploying core analytical components focused on streaming anomaly detection, predictive intelligence, and automated root-cause analysis. If you thrive on the challenge of building enterprise-grade, scalable ML systems and applying sophisticated techniques to complex, high-impact problems, you will be instrumental in delivering the full-stack, real-time answers and automation required for our customers to achieve true digital resilience across any cloud-native or hybrid environment.
Your Impact
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 $226,300.00 to $293,300.00 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:
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
The applicable full salary ranges for this position, by specific state, are listed below:
New York City Metro Area
$226,300.00 - $337,300.00
Non-Metro New York State & Washington State
$205,600.00 - $300,800.00
Join the engineering team building the intelligent backbone of Splunk Observability Cloud. We are committed to leveraging the latest advancements in data science and machine learning to unlock unprecedented value from massive volumes of telemetry—metrics, traces, and logs—at petabyte scale. This role involves researching, developing, and deploying core analytical components focused on streaming anomaly detection, predictive intelligence, and automated root-cause analysis. If you thrive on the challenge of building enterprise-grade, scalable ML systems and applying sophisticated techniques to complex, high-impact problems, you will be instrumental in delivering the full-stack, real-time answers and automation required for our customers to achieve true digital resilience across any cloud-native or hybrid environment.
Your Impact
- Lead the design, development, and evolution of Agentic platforms and machine learning algorithms for anomaly detection, prediction
- Apply the latest Generative AI and Agentic AI to enable AI features in Splunk Observability
- Collaborate across engineering and product teams to establish robust frameworks for evaluating AI systems’ trustworthiness and resilience.
- Provide technical leadership and mentorship within the team, establishing leading practices for development, testing, and artifact management.
- PhD degree in Computer Science or related field and 6 years of software engineering experience, or master's degree with 10 years of experience.
- Experience designing and building scalable cloud-based systems (AWS, Azure, or GCP), including container orchestration (e.g., Kubernetes, Docker).
- Proven experience in technical leadership, architecture design, and end-to-end feature ownership in AI/ML or platform domains.
- Experience with API design and frameworks (e.g. OpenAPI, GraphQL, gRPC, REST, etc.)
- Prior working experience in delivering RAG and Agentic products into production
- Expert at using vibe coding tools (Claude Code, Codex, Copilot, Windsurf, Cursor) is a must
- Up To Date knowledge on the latest Agentic and Generative AI research papers
- Exceptional problem-solving skills, with the ability to analyze complex requirements and propose effective solutions.
- Experience developing, deploying, and maintaining applications in AWS environment with cloud native solutions.
- Experience monitoring and analyzing metrics, trace, span, and log content
- Background in observability, generative AI, or model robustness
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 $226,300.00 to $293,300.00 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
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.
The applicable full salary ranges for this position, by specific state, are listed below:
New York City Metro Area
$226,300.00 - $337,300.00
Non-Metro New York State & Washington State
$205,600.00 - $300,800.00
- 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.
Salary : $226,300 - $293,300