Green Card ML Engineer Jobs
ML Engineer roles qualify for EB-2 sponsorship when the position requires an advanced degree in computer science, statistics, or a related field, and for EB-3 when a bachelor's degree suffices. Employers file PERM labor certification with DOL before petitioning USCIS, making documented specialty-occupation duties and prevailing-wage compliance central to a successful sponsorship.
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Get Access To All JobsThe application window is expected to close on: 11/22/2026
This is a Hybrid role based out of Cisco's San Jose office.
Meet the Team
Cisco’s AI Defense is dedicated to securing the next generation of enterprise AI platforms, autonomous agents, and foundation models. Our team brings together world-class distributed systems engineers, security researchers, and AI practitioners in an agile, high-velocity, and collaborative environment. You will join as a technical leader shaping both the product architecture and team culture. This is a rare opportunity to define the industry standard for AI security at Cisco’s global enterprise scale.
Your Impact
As a Technical Lead, you will serve as a hands-on technical authority for AI Defense, owning the systems that detect, validate and stop threats to AI. You will drive hard design and implementation challenges, from low-latency LLM inference at scale to secure deployments in customer environments. Your work will set the engineering standards for the team and directly shape how Cisco secures AI for its customers.
- Define and drive the architecture of scalable, high-performance platform services that protect AI applications and agents in real time.
- Remain hands-on in design and implementation, leading by example on the most complex and ambiguous technical problems.
- Shape LLM inference and model-hosting strategy, balancing latency, cost and scale for enterprise workloads.
- Partner with Product, Threat Research and Ops to deploy production-grade features and capabilities, delivered with operational excellence.
- Act as a technical thought leader and mentor, raising the engineering bar and communicating complex strategy and trade-offs to senior leadership.
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor's in Computer Science and 10+ years or Master's and 8+ years or PHD and 3+ years of software engineering experience, including architecting and delivering large-scale distributed systems.
- Experience with cloud-native backend development and modern cloud infrastructure.
- Prior experience with technical leadership across teams while remaining hands-on.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with LLM inference, generative AI systems, or AI/ML infrastructure.
- Background in security products or AI security.
- Experience delivering SaaS and hybrid enterprise deployments.
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 $216,300.00 to $280,800.00 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:
$216,300.00 - $322,900.00
Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:
$197,500.00 - $287,300.00
- 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.
The application window is expected to close on: 11/22/2026
This is a Hybrid role based out of Cisco's San Jose office.
Meet the Team
Cisco’s AI Defense is dedicated to securing the next generation of enterprise AI platforms, autonomous agents, and foundation models. Our team brings together world-class distributed systems engineers, security researchers, and AI practitioners in an agile, high-velocity, and collaborative environment. You will join as a technical leader shaping both the product architecture and team culture. This is a rare opportunity to define the industry standard for AI security at Cisco’s global enterprise scale.
Your Impact
As a Technical Lead, you will serve as a hands-on technical authority for AI Defense, owning the systems that detect, validate and stop threats to AI. You will drive hard design and implementation challenges, from low-latency LLM inference at scale to secure deployments in customer environments. Your work will set the engineering standards for the team and directly shape how Cisco secures AI for its customers.
- Define and drive the architecture of scalable, high-performance platform services that protect AI applications and agents in real time.
- Remain hands-on in design and implementation, leading by example on the most complex and ambiguous technical problems.
- Shape LLM inference and model-hosting strategy, balancing latency, cost and scale for enterprise workloads.
- Partner with Product, Threat Research and Ops to deploy production-grade features and capabilities, delivered with operational excellence.
- Act as a technical thought leader and mentor, raising the engineering bar and communicating complex strategy and trade-offs to senior leadership.
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor's in Computer Science and 10+ years or Master's and 8+ years or PHD and 3+ years of software engineering experience, including architecting and delivering large-scale distributed systems.
- Experience with cloud-native backend development and modern cloud infrastructure.
- Prior experience with technical leadership across teams while remaining hands-on.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with LLM inference, generative AI systems, or AI/ML infrastructure.
- Background in security products or AI security.
- Experience delivering SaaS and hybrid enterprise deployments.
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 $216,300.00 to $280,800.00 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:
$216,300.00 - $322,900.00
Non-Metro New York state & Washington state:
$197,500.00 - $287,300.00
- 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.
See all 1,601+ Green Card ML Engineer Jobs
Sign up for free to unlock all listings, filter by visa type, and get alerts for new Green Card ML Engineer Jobs.
Get Access To All JobsTips for Finding Green Card Sponsorship as a ML Engineer
Document your ML specialization before applying
PERM requires your employer to prove the role needs your specific qualifications. Compile publications, model deployment records, and performance benchmarks that tie your ML credentials to the job duties your employer will list on the labor certification.
Target employers with dedicated immigration infrastructure
Large tech firms and research-driven companies with in-house immigration counsel move PERM cases faster and with fewer errors. Look for ML roles at organizations that have sponsored foreign workers before, not just those posting open positions.
Search green card sponsoring ML jobs on Migrate Mate
Filter by EB-2 or EB-3 sponsorship history to find ML Engineer roles at employers who have actually filed PERM cases. Migrate Mate surfaces this DOL disclosure data so you skip the manual search through raw government filings.
Understand the prevailing wage before negotiating your offer
DOL sets four wage levels for ML Engineer roles by location. Use the OFLC Wage Search to check the Level II or Level III rate for your target metro area before your offer conversation, since your salary must meet or exceed the certified wage.
Ask your employer about EB-2 versus EB-3 at the offer stage
If your role genuinely requires a master's degree or you hold a strong credentials profile, EB-2 often means a shorter priority date wait for most nationalities. Clarify which category your employer intends to file under before you accept the offer.
Plan for the PERM recruitment audit window
DOL requires your employer to conduct good-faith recruitment and retain records for five years in case of an audit. Delays in starting that recruitment phase are the most common reason PERM timelines slip, so confirm your employer has begun the process.
Green Card ML Engineer: Frequently Asked Questions
Does an ML Engineer role qualify for EB-2 or EB-3 green card sponsorship?
Most ML Engineer positions qualify for EB-2 because employers routinely require a master's degree or equivalent in computer science, machine learning, or statistics. If the posted job description accepts a bachelor's degree, your employer will file under EB-3 instead. The distinction matters for priority date wait times, which vary significantly by your country of birth.
How does green card sponsorship differ from H-1B for ML Engineer roles?
Green card sponsorship through PERM and an I-140 petition leads to permanent residency, not a temporary work visa. There is no annual lottery for EB-3 the way there is for H-1B visa, and once your I-140 is approved your priority date is locked even if you change employers under portability rules. The tradeoff is a longer overall timeline, often two to five years from PERM filing to a green card in hand for most nationalities.
What does the PERM labor certification process look like for ML Engineer jobs?
Your employer files a PERM application with DOL certifying that no qualified U.S. worker was available for the ML Engineer role at the prevailing wage. DOL requires a specific recruitment campaign before filing, including job postings and documentation of applicant review. Once DOL certifies the PERM, your employer files the I-140 immigrant petition with USCIS, which locks in your priority date.
How can I find ML Engineer jobs where the employer will sponsor a green card?
Search for ML Engineer roles on Migrate Mate, which filters positions by employers with confirmed EB-2 and EB-3 PERM filing history drawn from DOL disclosure data. This removes the guesswork of cold-applying to companies that have never sponsored a foreign worker, letting you focus your effort on employers who have already run the process.
Can I use O*NET to confirm whether my ML Engineer duties support a specialty occupation?
Yes. The O*NET profile for ML Engineer and related data science occupations lists the typical education requirements, core tasks, and required knowledge areas that DOL and USCIS use when evaluating specialty occupation and PERM eligibility. If your day-to-day duties align closely with the O*NET task list, your employer's labor certification case is on stronger footing.