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# Principal Software Engineer, AI Defense (Hybrid)

- **Company:** Cisco Systems, Inc.
- **Location:** Milpitas, CA, United States
- **Experience:** Expert
- **Salary:** $250,600.0
- **Contract:** Permanent contract
- **Skills:** Java (Programming Language), Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), Artificial Intelligence, Amazon Web Services, Communications Protocols, Cyber Security, Continuous Integration, Software Debugging, Distributed Systems, Identity and Access Management, Python (Programming Language), Key Management, Open Source Technology, Systems Development Life Cycle, Role-Based Access Control, Zero Trust Network Access, Software Safety, Software Engineering, Data Streaming, Policy as Code, Cloud Platform System, Istio, Large Language Models, Multi-Agent Systems, Cyber Threat Analysis, Agentic-AI, Kubernetes, Information Technology, Apache Kafka, Model Context Protocol, Automation Anywhere, Devsecops, Cisco, Microservices
- **Published:** October 31, 2026
- **Apply:** https://dejobs.org/x/x/C3A59776F33A4E02999AFE042F8E0C47/job/

## About the Role

* Bachelor's degree in computer science and 15+ years of relevant software engineering experience, Master's degree and 12+ years, or Ph.D. and 8+ years building enterprise-scale distributed systems.
 * 8+ years of hands-on software development experience utilizing Go, Python, or Java to build production microservices, SDKs, and REST/gRPC APIs.
 * Experience architecting and operating multi-tenant cloud-native infrastructure on AWS or GCP, including container orchestration with Kubernetes (EKS/GKE) and event-driven data streaming (Kafka/MSK).
 * 5+ years of core engineering experience in cybersecurity domains (e.g., cloud security posture management, identity/access governance, RBAC/ABAC, threat modeling, or security analytics).
 * Experience building, debugging, or securing LLM applications, agentic frameworks, or Model Context Protocol (MCP) architectures in production., * Expertise in AI safety engineering, including prompt-injection defenses, graph-based security models, runtime model observability, and policy-as-code frameworks.
 * Experience leading greenfield 0-to-1 platform initiatives and executing zero-downtime migrations for high-throughput enterprise SaaS.
 * Experience implementing zero-trust network boundaries, secrets management, service meshes (Envoy/Istio), and automated CI/CD DevSecOps pipelines.
 * Technical mentorship and cross-functional leadership skills with the ability to build consensus across research, engineering, and executive stakeholders.
 * Active contributor to open-source security tools, agent-to-agent communication protocols, or industry AI safety standards.

## Description

As a Principal Software Engineer for AI Defense, you will serve as the chief technical authority driving the end-to-end security architecture for Cisco's enterprise AI ecosystems. You will architect high-throughput control and data planes that safeguard foundation models, multi-agent frameworks, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) tool execution from emerging cyber threats. In this role, you will balance strategic cross-organizational influence with hands-on systems development, translating complex AI safety research into production-hardened software. Success in this position means establishing resilient, zero-trust security boundaries that empower global enterprises to deploy autonomous AI agents with absolute confidence. You will lead by example-mentoring senior engineers, shaping engineering standards, and defining the future of AI defense at Cisco scale.

 * Architect enterprise AI defense platforms by owningthe technical vision and system design for AI Defense control planes, data planes, policy engines, and real-time posture assessment services to safeguard enterprise AI workflows against adversarial attacks.
 * Write and deploy high throughput microservices and APIs in Go and Python to process high-volume telemetry streams under strict latency and reliability SLAs.
 * Harden agentic AI and model security throughdesign runtime guardrails, Model Context Protocol (MCP) policy enforcement, and automated remediation engines to neutralize prompt injection, model jailbreaks, and tool-abuse risks.
 * Drive cross-organizational technical strategy by partnering with Product Management, Security Research, and platform engineering teams across Cisco to establish zero-trust architectures and convert complex customer security requirements into production-ready software.