AI Customer Engineer III

About the role

As an AI Customer Engineer III in Cognizant's AI Market Unit, you will lead complex AI solution shaping and MVP delivery efforts while playing a central role in advancing strategic client opportunities. With deep technical expertise and strong executive presence, you will run ideation workshops, define end-to-end AI architectures, and own the development of compelling proposals that connect technical excellence to measurable business outcomes. Embedded in client environments, you will build trusted relationships with senior stakeholders, manage expectations across the engagement lifecycle, and ensure a well-orchestrated handoff to delivery and service line teams. You will also develop the engineers around you, building capability and quality across the AI Market Unit.

In this role, you will:
• Lead structured client discovery and art-of-the-possible ideation sessions identifying high-value AI use cases and translating ambiguous needs into clear solution hypotheses.
• Embed with clients and rapidly prototype GenAI-enabled solutions building working software that demonstrates business impact with speed and precision.
• Define end-to-end AI solution architectures including agentic platforms, data/ML pipelines, integration patterns, human-in-the-loop controls, and partner components.
• Apply architecture decisions that balance quality, safety, latency, cost, and model risk ensuring solutions are enterprise-grade and production-ready.
• Build and sustain trusted relationships with client senior leadership operating with executive presence to instill confidence, manage expectations, and position Cognizant as a long-term AI partner.
• Partner with clients throughout the MVP build cycle managing expectations, communicating progress clearly to executive and technical audiences, enabling end users, and ensuring a clean, well-documented handoff to delivery and service line teams for scaled implementation.
• Develop client-ready deliverables including proposals, Statements of Work, architecture decks, and value frameworks tailored for executive audiences.
• Orchestrate pursuit teams across sales, industry specialists, engineering, and delivery to progress complex AI opportunities through deal closure.
• Coach and develop junior engineers through regular feedback, mentoring, and stretch assignments.
• Mentor and develop junior engineers through deal reviews, coaching, and development planning.

Work model

We believe hybrid work is the way forward as we strive to provide flexibility wherever possible. Based on this role's business requirements, this is a hybrid position requiring 2-3 days a week in a client or Cognizant office. Regardless of your working arrangement, we are here to support a healthy work-life balance though our various wellbeing programs.The working arrangements for this role are accurate as of the date of posting. This may change based on the project you're engaged in, as well as business and client requirements. Rest assured; we will always be clear about role expectations.

What you need to have to be considered
• Experience: 5+ years in AI/ML engineering, solution architecture, pre-sales, or technical consulting.
• Executive Presence: Demonstrated ability to engage confidently with senior client stakeholders, lead executive-level discussions, and represent technical solutions with authority and clarity.
• Pre-Sales & Solutioning: Demonstrated ability to shape AI opportunities, write proposals, and estimate complex solutions.
• Client Relationship Management: Proven ability to build and sustain trusted relationships with senior client stakeholders throughout the engagement lifecycle.
• Nice to Have: Experience building MVPs during sales cycles; background in AI consulting, technical advisory, or a specific enterprise vertical.

These will help you stand out
• Executive Presence & Influence - Engaging with senior client leadership and internal executives with authority, clarity, and confidence; inspiring trust at every level of the client organization.
• Ideation & Art-of-the-Possible - Stretching client thinking to uncover new AI value creation opportunities.
• Solutioning Excellence - Designing scalable, feasible, value-led solutions for diverse client environments.
• AI/ML Technical Depth - Strong mastery of GenAI, LLMs, ML engineering, agentic architectures, and production AI deployment.
• Handoff & Continuity - Ensuring MVP-to-delivery transitions are thorough, well-documented, and set service line teams up for successful scaled implementation.
• High Agency - Ability to navigate ambiguity, operate autonomously, and represent Cognizant at the highest level in client environments.

Technical Skills & Tools
• Languages & Engineering: Strong production coding across Python and at least one additional language; fluency in enterprise integration patterns.
• AI/ML & GenAI: Deep production expertise in LLMs, agentic architectures, evaluation frameworks, and MLOps/LLMOps at scale.
• Cloud Platforms: Multi-hyperscaler depth across AWS Bedrock, Google Vertex AI, and Azure AI Foundry; owns model selection, routing, open-weight self-hosting, and cost/latency optimization.
• Agent & Orchestration Frameworks: Designs multi-agent and stateful agent systems; selects among LangGraph, CrewAI, Microsoft Agent Framework, and vendor SDKs based on control, latency, and cost trade-offs; applies orchestration patterns (supervisor/worker, human-in-the-loop checkpoints).
• RAG & Retrieval: Designs enterprise retrieval architectures; evaluates vector store and indexing trade-offs for accuracy, scale, and cost.
• LLMOps - Eval & Observability: Establishes the evaluation and observability strategy for an engagement (LangSmith, Langfuse, Arize Phoenix, or Braintrust), including self-hosted options for data-residency requirements.
• Responsible AI & Governance: Embeds Responsible AI by design - model risk, safety, and bias controls - aligned to NIST AI RMF, ISO 42001, and the EU AI Act; applies sector compliance (SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI) as relevant.
• Practice Contribution: Codifies reusable patterns, accelerators, and reference implementations that build team IP.

Salary and Other Compensation:

The annual salary for this position is between $100,000 -$180,000 depending on experience and other qualifications of the successful candidate. This position is eligible for Cognizant's discretionary annual incentive program, based on performance and subject to the terms of Cognizant's applicable plans.

Benefits

This position is also eligible for Cognizant's discretionary annual incentive program and stock awards, based on performance and subject to the terms of Cognizant's applicable plans.

Benefits: Cognizant offers the following benefits for this position, subject to apply

Cognizant offers the following benefits for this position, subject to applicable eligibility requirements:
• Medical/Dental/Vision/Life Insurance
• Paid holidays plus Paid Time Off
• 401(k) plan and contributions
• Long-term/Short-term Disability
• Paid Parental Leave
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan

Disclaimer: The salary, other compensation, and benefits information is accurate as of the date of this posting. Cognizant reserves the right to modify this information at any time, based on applicable law.

Work Authorization

Must be legally authorized to work in the United States without the need for employer sponsorship, now or any time in the future.