*Please note, this role is not able to offer visa transfer or sponsorship now or in the future*Principal Cloud Platform ArchitectPosition Summary
We are seeking a highly experienced Principal Cloud Platform Architect to drive the operational maturity and scalability of our CONNECT Platform. This is a strategic, hands-on role focused on improving platform reliability, performance, scalability, resiliency, and cloud cost efficiency across Azure and AWS environments.
You will partner closely with Architecture, COE, Engineering, Testing, and Operations teams to identify systemic challenges, validate architectural solutions, and establish best practices for operating large-scale cloud-native platforms. This role emphasizes technical leadership through influence, innovation, and collaboration rather than direct authority.
Key Responsibilities
Platform Architecture & Innovation
- Research, define, and validate cloud-native architectural patterns that improve scalability, reliability, availability, and operational efficiency.
- Drive platform modernization initiatives across Kubernetes-based environments.
- Evaluate emerging technologies and recommend strategic platform improvements.
Kubernetes & Cloud Optimization
- Design and optimize large-scale deployments on Azure AKS and AWS EKS.
- Develop advanced workload scheduling, auto-scaling, and resource optimization strategies.
- Improve multi-tenant platform architectures and operational efficiency.
- Ensure optimal utilization of compute, storage, and networking resources.
Reliability, Availability & Resilience
- Architect highly available and fault-tolerant systems.
- Define disaster recovery and resiliency strategies for cloud-native applications.
- Establish reliability engineering practices to proactively prevent production issues.
- Improve platform observability through logging, metrics, tracing, and monitoring frameworks.
Performance & Cost Management
- Drive cloud cost optimization initiatives without compromising system performance.
- Analyze infrastructure consumption patterns and develop scalable cost-control models.
- Identify platform bottlenecks and recommend architectural improvements.
System Validation & Testing
- Partner with validation and system test teams to design large-scale performance and resiliency test scenarios.
- Simulate real-world customer workloads and production-scale environments.
- Validate interactions between distributed system components under stress conditions.
Technical Leadership
- Lead proof-of-concept initiatives and architectural prototypes.
- Mentor engineering teams on cloud-native and platform engineering best practices.
- Promote adoption of modern operational and automation practices across teams.
Required Qualifications
- 12+ years of overall software/cloud engineering experience.
- 5+ years of hands-on Kubernetes architecture and administration experience.
- Deep expertise in Kubernetes internals, including:
- Control Plane
- Scheduling
- Networking
- Service Mesh
- Network Policies
- Resource Management
- Security
Cloud Platforms
- Expert-level experience with:
- Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
- Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)
- Azure Cloud Services
- AWS Cloud Services
Infrastructure Automation
- Strong experience with:
- Terraform
- Bicep
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
- Configuration Automation
CI/CD & GitOps
- Experience implementing:
- GitOps practices
- ArgoCD
- GitHub Actions
- Azure DevOps
- Modern CI/CD pipelines
Observability
- Strong knowledge of:
- Prometheus
- Grafana
- OpenTelemetry
- Azure Monitor
- Logging, Monitoring, and Distributed Tracing
Distributed Systems
- Deep understanding of:
- Large-scale distributed architectures
- High Availability (HA)
- Fault Tolerance
- Scalability Patterns
- Multi-Tenancy
- Performance Engineering
Preferred Qualifications- Experience with Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) practices.
- Experience operating SaaS platforms at scale.
- Knowledge of FinOps and cloud cost optimization frameworks.
- Experience with service mesh technologies such as Istio or Linkerd.
- Strong background in platform engineering and cloud-native ecosystem tools.
Compensation: - $130,000 to $160,000 + 10% Target Bonus + Full benefits. Application will be accepted by 10/25/2026
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.
