Forward Deployment Engineer (FDE / Java Full Stack + GenAI)

About The Role

As a Forward Deployment Engineer, you will make an impact by designing, developing, and deploying innovative Generative AI-powered solutions that accelerate software delivery, improve developer productivity, and transform enterprise engineering workflows. You will be a valued member of the engineering team and work collaboratively with product teams, business stakeholders, platform engineering teams, and client partners to integrate GenAI capabilities into modern software development environments.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and deploy Generative AI-powered applications and engineering solutions using leading AI platforms and tools.
• Integrate AI and developer productivity tools into enterprise software development lifecycle (SDLC) workflows, including CI/CD pipelines and engineering platforms.
• Partner with cross-functional teams to accelerate product delivery, improve engineering efficiency, and enhance the end-to-end application lifecycle.
• Lead adoption, enablement, and best practices for Generative AI technologies, including prompt engineering, agent-based workflows, and AI-assisted development.
• Provide hands-on technical leadership, troubleshooting, performance optimization, and scalable implementation support across enterprise environments.

Qualifications

• 16+ years of experience in software engineering, application development, or technology consulting roles.
• Strong expertise in Java 17 and Spring Boot microservices development.
• Proven experience developing modern full-stack applications using technologies such as Java, React, Angular, TypeScript, and Python.
• Hands-on experience with distributed systems, APIs, event-driven architectures, and cloud-native microservices.
• Experience implementing and supporting CI/CD pipelines, developer platforms, and modern engineering toolchains.
• Strong knowledge of cloud platforms such as Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and OpenShift (OCP).
• Hands-on experience with Generative AI and Large Language Model technologies, including tools such as Devin, Claude, and modern AI-assisted development platforms.
• Experience with prompt engineering, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), agent-based workflows, and AI orchestration frameworks.
• Ability to independently drive technical solutions from inception through deployment with minimal supervision.
• Experience working within enterprise environments that require governance, security, and regulatory compliance.

What You Need To Have To Be Considered

• Experience designing and implementing multi-agent architectures and autonomous AI workflows.
• Knowledge of Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers and AI tool integrations.
• Experience building AI-enabled developer productivity solutions at enterprise scale.
• Strong consulting and stakeholder management skills with the ability to translate business challenges into technical solutions.
• Passion for mentoring teams, driving technology adoption, and delivering measurable productivity improvements.
• Experience supporting large-scale enterprise transformations involving AI-assisted software delivery.

Salary And Other Compensation

The annual salary for this position is between $81,000 – $155,000 depending on experience and other qualifications of the successful candidate. 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.

Benefits

• Cognitive Health and Wellness Program
• Medical/Dental/Vision/Life Insurance
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)
• 401(k) plan and contributions
• Long-term/Short-term Disability
• Paid holidays plus Paid Time Off
• Paid Parental Leave
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan