Software Engineer
Cisco is hiring a Software Engineer in Bengaluru, India. Level rates it ; you can apply on Cisco.
Level's read on this job
- On Level's scale, this software engineer role is Builds AI ●●●●: the job is building AI systems.
- Tools and skills the posting cites include Claude, Llama and LangGraph.
- Level classifies it as a junior role.
- Level lists 1,500+ other open roles at Cisco.
- The role was posted in the last few days.
AI in this role
Join Cisco’s Industrial IoT engineering team to build software for industrial switching, routing, wireless, security, observability, and edge computing. Our products help customers across manufacturing, energy, transportation, and smart cities to securely connect critical infrastructure, gain real-time operational visibility, and build resilient networks.
You’ll collaborate with engineers across networking, cybersecurity, embedded systems, AI-powered network operations, industrial threat detection, agentic systems, and Small Language Models (SLMs) at the edge, with opportunities to experiment and solve complex engineering problems.
We are looking for AI-native software engineers with strong foundations in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and Agentic Systems who can turn these capabilities into working software.
Your Impact
Contribute to AI-powered applications for industrial networking, security, observability, and edge computing.
• Build AI applications and agents: Develop and evaluate industrial applications and agentic workflows using LLMs, SLMs, machine learning, computer vision, RAG, MCP, and tool calling.
• Apply AI to industrial networking and security: Develop capabilities for smarter network operations, troubleshooting, observability, anomaly detection, and threat detection.
• Develop Edge AI: Fine-tune, optimise, and deploy ML models and SLMs on edge platforms, balancing model quality, memory, compute, and latency for reliable on-device inference.
• Practice AI-first product development: Use coding agents and agentic workflows across design, implementation, debugging, testing, and review. Collaborate with domain and AI engineers to deliver reliable software, validating correctness, performance, and security.
Minimum Qualifications
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, AI/ML, or a related field, with 1–3 years of relevant experience.
• Strong Python skills and proficiency in another language such as C, C++, Go, or Java, with a sound foundation in data structures, algorithms, software design, and debugging.
• Hands-on AI/ML or LLM/agent application development using tools such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, or Hugging Face, including model integration and evaluation.
• Experience using AI coding agents such as Codex, Cursor, Claude Code, or equivalent tools, with the judgment to validate generated code.
• Familiarity with Networking domain such as TCP/IP or Security protocols experience or Experience in development and validation of peripheral interfaces (e.g. PCI, PCIe, I2C, SPI, UART, GPIO, Ethernet) is a plus.
Preferred Qualifications
• ML/DL and LLM foundations, with exposure to SLM adaptation (fine-tuning, LoRA/PEFT, distillation, quantization) and on-device inference using TensorFlow Lite or llama.cpp under resource constraints.
• Experience with RAG, MCP, or agent orchestration frameworks such as LangGraph; familiarity with A2A is a plus.
• Open-source AI contributions, research, hackathons, or independently developed applications.
Why Cisco?
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.
Disclaimer
To ensure that we hire the best talent in the right way, we follow a strict hiring process and recently, Cisco has been made aware of fraudulent recruiters claiming to be from the company. Please be advised that any communication from Cisco about careers will:
- be in direct response to an application you have submitted through the company career site
- begin with screening or an interview
- originate from a Cisco email address, and
- be conducted across email, phone, or WebEx
Cisco will never make a job offer without conducting an interview process or ask you for money in any way. If you have been requested to apply for a role or have received an offer from a site other than https://careers.cisco.com or cisco.wd5.myworkday.com, do not provide any personal identifying information, including your Aadhaar or other personal identifying number, birth certificate, banking information, driver's license, or passport.
If you are the target of a recruiting scam, consider filing a report with your local law enforcement authorities. Cisco bears no responsibility, and cannot be held liable, for any claims, damages, expenses, or other inconvenience resulting from or in any way connected to recruiting scams.
How we rate this
Software Engineer at Cisco rates 93 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Builds AI (AI Level 4 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.
Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.
- ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
- ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
- ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
- ●○○○ Little AI0 to 39
Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.
Prepare for this job
Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.
Skills and AI tools this role asks for
Also common in software engineer jobs at this level
Pay
- Typical software engineer job
- $167k
This posting doesn't list pay. Use the typical software engineer figure when pay comes up. See software engineer jobs
Questions you could be asked
- How would you design a retrieval step so the model answers from real data instead of guessing?
- How do you decide when an AI agent can act on its own versus asking for approval first?
- Walk me through fine-tuning a model: what data did you use, and how did you check the result?
- Walk me through a computer vision problem you solved, from raw data to a deployed model.
- Walk me through how you've used Claude in your day-to-day work.
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: RAG, AI agents, Fine-tuning, Computer vision, and Claude. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
- Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
- Lead with what you built, trained or shipped. This role is judged on the AI system itself, not the tools around it.
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