Distinguished Engineer (Splunk AI team)

The application window is expected to close on: 03/27/2026 Job posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or if a sufficient number of applications are received. Meet the Team Splunk, a Cisco company, is building a safer, more resilient digital world with an end‑to‑end, full‑stack platform designed for hybrid, multi‑cloud environments. Join the AI team at Splunk, where we advance the state of AI for high‑volume, real‑time, multi‑modal machine‑generated data — including logs, time series, traces, and events. We combine deep AI research expertise with the scale and operational excellence of Splunk and Cisco’s global engineering capabilities. Our work spans networking, security, observability, and customer experience — designing and deploying foundation models that enhance reliability, strengthen security, prevent downtime, and deliver predictive insights across Splunk Observability, Security, and Platform at enterprise scale. You’ll be part of a culture that values technical excellence, impact‑driven innovation, and multi-functional collaboration — all within a flexible, growth‑oriented environment. Your Impact Define and evolve the technical vision and strategy for AI/ML capabilities across our product portfolio. Shape and drive our AI technology roadmap with cutting-edge innovations to deliver best-in-class AI solutions to our customers. Work with the senior leadership team to build awareness and alignment to accelerate the rollout and adoption of AI technologies. Effectively communicate with and influence key stakeholders across the enterprise, at all levels of the organization. Provide technical guidance and mentorship to the multi-functional team and promote a culture of engineering excellence. Collaborate with fellow technical leaders to ensure the successful and timely delivery of AI/ML models and service integration. Identify and mitigate risks in our plans and executions, especially at the intersection of business and engineering. Minimum Qualifications Masters in Computer Science, or related quantitative field, plus 12+ years of industry research experience. Prior experience in at least one of the following areas: deep learning, reinforcement learning, unsupervised learning, natural language processing, time series modeling. Proven track record in Generative AI technology including Large Language Models (LLM), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), Fine Tuning, and Agentic AI. Experience working with large-scale production systems across model training and inference. Preferred Qualifications PhD in Computer Science or a related quantitative field Extensive experience building and adapting large-scale language models (e.g., T5, BERT, LLaMA, GPTs) for specialized domains, including structured/unstructured logs, text, and event sequences Strong background in multi-modal AI modeling, fusing logs, time series, traces, tabular data, and graphs for advanced operational insights Expertise in large-scale training and optimization, including model architecture design, distributed training pipelines, and efficient inference to minimize cost and latency while maintaining accuracy Strong research track record with publications in leading AI/ML conferences or journals (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, AAAI, CVPR, ACL, KDD), showcasing state-of-the-art methods and real-world applications Demonstrated experience in large-scale data processing and parallel computing (GPU, multi-GPU, distributed training), developing and deploying complex models in production, leading impactful AI product development, and building strong internal and external partnerships 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 acro ... (truncated, view full listing at source)