Senior Forward Deployed Engineer
Confirmed on the employer's own hiring board on Oct 30, 2026. First seen by Alion on Oct 14, 2026. Cisco Systems scores A on the Alion truth index.
Meet the Team
Join a team that's helping some of the world's largest enterprises successfully deploy AI into production. As a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE), you'll work at the intersection of software engineering, customer engagement, and product innovation. You'll partner closely with customers to solve complex technical challenges while collaborating with Product and Engineering teams to improve the platform based on real-world customer needs.
You'll work on some of the most challenging AI deployments in the industry, partnering with Fortune 100 organizations to bring cutting-edge AI systems into production. Every engagement influences not only customer success, but also the future direction of the product. If you enjoy solving hard engineering problems, working directly with customers, and building technology that scales beyond a single implementation, we'd love to hear from you.
Your Impact
As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you will:
- Partner with enterprise customers to understand technical requirements and business goals.
- Design scalable AI solution architectures and guide customers through production deployments.
- Build integrations, prototypes, and reusable tools that accelerate customer success.
- Lead technical workshops, architecture discussions, and troubleshoot complex production issues.
- Collaborate with Product and Engineering teams to share customer feedback and influence future product enhancements.
- Create documentation, reusable best practices, and technical assets that benefit future deployments.
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related technical field (or equivalent experience).
- 7+ years of strong software engineering experience building production-grade applications, or Masters + 4 years of related experience, or PhD + 1 year of related experience.
- Experience with APIs, distributed systems, cloud platforms, or backend development.
- Strong troubleshooting and problem-solving skills across multiple layers of the technology stack.
- Excellent communication skills and the ability to work directly with enterprise customers.
- Comfortable working in fast-paced, ambiguous environments.
- Interest in AI, Machine Learning, or developer platforms.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience deploying or supporting Generative AI, LLM, or Machine Learning applications in production.
- Experience with Kubernetes, cloud infrastructure, observability, or MLOps.
- Experience building customer-facing technical solutions or integrations.
- Experience creating reusable developer tools, frameworks, or open-source contributions.
- Consulting, Solutions Engineering, or Technical Customer Success experience in enterprise environments.
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
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