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Senior Kubernetes Platform Engineer - AI Infrastructure - hybrid (2013580)

***hybrid role requires some on-site work activity at Research Triangle Park NC, Dallas TX, or Allen TX office

Join our Platform Engineering team to design, build, and operate large-scale, on-prem Kubernetes infrastructure powering next-generation AI/ML platforms, including GPU-enabled environments for both traditional ML and state-of-the-art LLM workloads.

You will be pivotal in defining and evolving a highly scalable Kubernetes platform that serves as the foundation for AI/ML workloads. This role combines deep Kubernetes platform engineering with AI/ML infrastructure enablement, ensuring performance, reliability, and scalability across distributed systems.

You will lead technical direction across Kubernetes control plane operations, cluster lifecycle management, and platform extensibility, while working closely with data scientists, ML engineers, and infrastructure teams to support production AI workloads at scale.

This is a senior individual contributor role focused on platform ownership, engineering excellence, and driving reliability and automation across complex distributed environments.

Your Impact / Core Responsibilities

• Architect, build, and operate large-scale on-prem Kubernetes platforms (OpenShift/Anthos), including control plane and etcd lifecycle management

• Define and evolve scalable, multi-tenant platform architecture supporting AI/ML and GPU-based workloads

• Enable and optimize ML workloads including training, inference, and LLM deployment pipelines on Kubernetes

• Build platform extensions using Kubernetes controllers, operators, CRDs, and Golang-based services

• Implement Infrastructure as Code and automation to improve scalability, consistency, and operational efficiency

• Drive AIOps capabilities using telemetry, automation, anomaly detection, and self-healing systems for platform reliability

• Improve observability (metrics, logs, traces) and optimize resource utilization, scheduling, and cluster performance

• Partner with ML engineers and data scientists to operationalize ML workflows and ensure platform readiness for AI workloads

• Participate in on-call rotations, owning incident response, reliability, and continuous operational improvement

• Mentor engineers and contribute to defining platform engineering standards and best practices

Minimum Qualifications / Required Experience

• 8+ years of software engineering experience

• 4+ years of hands-on Kubernetes production experience with control plane ownership

• Strong experience operating on-prem or self-managed Kubernetes environments

• Deep expertise in etcd management (backup, restore, recovery, upgrades)

• Strong proficiency in Go with experience building Kubernetes controllers, operators, CRDs, and webhooks

• Deep understanding of Kubernetes internals (API server, scheduler, controller loops, reconciliation)

• Experience supporting AI/ML or GPU-based workloads on Kubernetes platforms

• Proven experience operating and debugging large-scale distributed systems

• Experience participating in on-call rotations and production incident management

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with bare-metal or enterprise on-prem infrastructure at scale

• Exposure to AI/ML platforms and tooling (e.g., Kubeflow, MLflow, distributed training systems)

• Experience building internal developer platforms or platform-as-a-service (PaaS) systems

• Familiarity with AIOps concepts such as automated remediation and predictive operations

• Experience applying data-driven or ML-based techniques for system reliability or capacity planning

• Contributions to Kubernetes, CNCF, or other open-source ecosystems

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. 

Message to applicants applying to work in the U.S. and/or Canada:

The starting salary range posted for this position is $139,300.00 to $203,600.00 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

For non-sales roles, employees are also eligible to earn annual bonuses 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:

• .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.

For non-quota-based sales performance elements such as strategic sales objectives, Cisco may pay 0% up to 125% of target. Cisco sales plans do not have a minimum threshold of performance for sales incentive compensation to be paid.

The applicable full salary ranges for this position, by specific state, are listed below:

New York City Metro Area:

$167,700.00 - $282,000.00

Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:

$149,100.00 - $250,900.00

* 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.