*Please note, this role is not able to offer visa transfer or sponsorship now or in the future*Principal AI Platform EngineerApplied AI | Cloud Platforms | Industrial Software | Multicloud Engineering
Level: Principal / Senior Individual Contributor
Focus: Hands-on Engineering & Technical Leadership
The OpportunityWe are seeking a Principal AI Platform Engineer to design and deliver enterprise-scale AI and cloud platform solutions. This is a highly hands-on technical leadership role combining Applied AI, Generative AI, cloud-native engineering, distributed systems, Azure/AWS, and industrial software.
You will work closely with Product, R&D, Architecture, Cloud Operations, and customer-facing teams to build secure, scalable, reusable, and production-ready solutions.
Key Responsibilities- Design and build AI-enabled services, APIs, connectors, libraries, automation, and reusable platform components.
- Develop production AI solutions using LLMs, Generative AI, RAG, AI agents, orchestration, vector search, grounding, evaluation, safety, monitoring, and cost optimization.
- Architect cloud-native solutions using C#, .NET, ASP.NET Core, REST APIs, microservices, containers, Kubernetes, serverless, and event-driven architectures.
- Engineer enterprise platforms across Microsoft Azure and AWS, including identity, data, messaging, API management, observability, Infrastructure as Code, and CI/CD.
- Design and execute cloud migrations and Azure-to-AWS migration strategies, including networking, data movement, portability, resilience, cutover, and rollback.
- Troubleshoot complex production issues involving performance, scalability, reliability, latency, security, and compliance.
- Build solutions involving industrial/OT data, time-series data, historians, SCADA, MES, ERP/EAM, digital twins, and edge-to-cloud integration.
- Use AI-assisted engineering for code modernization, refactoring, migration, performance analysis, testing, and developer productivity.
- Provide technical leadership, influence architecture decisions, mentor engineers, and establish strong engineering practices.
Required Experience- Typically 10-15 years of relevant software engineering, AI, cloud/platform engineering, distributed systems, or industrial software experience.
- Strong hands-on expertise in Applied AI and Generative AI, including production implementation of LLMs, RAG, agents, vector search, evaluation, grounding, safety, monitoring, latency, and cost management.
- Strong backend engineering experience with C#, .NET, ASP.NET Core, APIs, microservices, containers, and Kubernetes.
- Advanced hands-on experience across Azure and AWS, including compute, Kubernetes/containers, serverless, databases, storage, messaging, identity, secrets management, API management, monitoring, CI/CD, and Infrastructure as Code.
- Experience with multicloud architecture and cloud migration, preferably including Azure-to-AWS migrations.
- Understanding of industrial environments such as SCADA/OT, historians, MES, time-series data, ERP/EAM, digital twins, and edge/cloud integration.
- Strong understanding of secure software engineering, testing, observability, deployment, scalability, performance, release readiness, and production support.
- Ability to provide technical leadership and influence engineering teams without requiring direct people-management responsibility.
Highly Desirable- Experience designing and operating agentic AI systems that automate SDLC activities such as requirements analysis, coding, code review, testing, dependency upgrades, and release preparation.
- Experience integrating AI agents with source control, CI/CD, and engineering tools, including human approval gates, scoped permissions, auditability, and security controls.
- Experience deploying AI solutions in regulated, high-availability, industrial, or mission-critical environments.
What Success Looks LikeYou will deliver secure, production-ready AI capabilities and reusable platform solutions while improving cloud portability, developer productivity, application performance, reliability, and customer value.
This is a Principal-level technical leadership role for someone who remains deeply hands-on. It is not primarily a people-management position.
Compensation: - $120,000 to $180,000 + this position is also eligible for Cognizant's discretionary annual incentive program, based on performance and subject to the terms of Cognizant's applicable plans. Application will be accepted by 11/27/2026
Benefits: 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
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Additional employment informationCompensation information is accurate as of the date of this posting. Cognizant reserves the right to modify this information at any time, subject to applicable law.
Applicants may be required to attend interviews in person or by video conference. In addition, candidates may be required to present their current state or government issued ID during each interview.
Applicants for US based positions must be currently authorized to work for any employer in the United States. The company is unable to provide employment-based immigration sponsorship for US based positions.
If you have a disability that requires reasonable accommodation to search for a job opening or submit an application, please email [email protected] for roles based in the Americas or [email protected] for roles based in India.
