Software Engineer
Cisco is hiring a Software Engineer in Budapest, Hungary. Level rates it ; you can apply on Cisco.
Level's read on this job
- Level rates this software engineer role Builds AI ●●●●: the job is building AI systems.
- Tools and skills the posting cites include LangChain, LangGraph and Semantic Kernel.
- Level classifies it as a senior role.
- Level lists 1,400+ other open roles at Cisco.
AI in this role
Build and scale production cloud-native microservices and agentic AI capabilities using LLMs, RAG, and modern web technologies on AWS and Kubernetes.
Software Engineer, UI, AI & Agentic AI
Meet the Team
Our team builds and runs the cloud-native services and AI capabilities that Cisco engineers, customers, and the wider developer community use every day. We take generative and agentic AI past the demo stage and into production, where reliability and security decide whether the work matters. The team pairs experienced architects with engineers who are still growing their depth, and code review here is a teaching exercise rather than a gate. You will have senior engineers close at hand, real ownership of what you build, and room to ask questions without penalty. Agentic AI is new ground for everyone, which makes this a good place to build expertise while it still counts as early.
Your Impact
Build and maintain secure microservice applications and REST APIs on AWS and Kubernetes, taking your work from requirements through testing, deployment, and support so that you own the outcome and not just the commit. Develop and integrate AI capabilities, including LLM-based features, agents, retrieval augmented generation, and tool and function calling, so that new technology reaches users as working product. Apply secure coding practice across APIs, identity, secrets, and vulnerability fixes, because a small gap early becomes an expensive problem later. Write automated unit, integration, and functional tests, and contribute to CI/CD and monitoring, so that quality holds as the platform grows. Success in this role looks like features you delivered running reliably in production, and steady growth in your depth across cloud, AI, and agentic technology.
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelors + 5 years of related experience, or Masters + 3 years of related of related experience, or equivalent related work experience.
- 2+ years of professional software engineering experience delivering production code in one or more of Python, Java, Go, or JavaScript/TypeScript.
- 1+ years of experience developing microservices, REST APIs, or cloud-based applications on a public cloud platform such as AWS.
- Hands-on experience developing or deploying containerized applications in Kubernetes.
- Hands-on experience building applications with generative AI or large language models, including exposure to retrieval augmented generation, embeddings, or tool and function calling.
Preferred Qualifications
- Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.
- Experience developing AI-powered applications or AI agents, and familiarity with vector databases, RAG pipelines, and LLM APIs.
- Familiarity with AI frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, or Semantic Kernel, and with Model Context Protocol or comparable AI-to-tool integration technologies.
- Familiarity with AI security, guardrails, responsible AI, or AI governance practices.
- Curiosity and a habit of continuous learning, with the ability to take feedback in code review and apply it, and to collaborate well across engineering, product, and security teams.
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.
How we rate this
Software Engineer at Cisco rates 85 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
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?
- How do you think about the risk of an AI system in this kind of role failing silently?
- Tell me about a project where microservices was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where rest apis was part of your work. What did you do?
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: RAG, AI agents, AI Safety, Microservices, and REST APIs. 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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