Partner Consulting, AI

About the role

As a Partner Consulting – AI, you will lead end-to-end delivery of complex Generative AI and enterprise AI transformation programs, while staying closely engaged in architecture and engineering decisions. You will work collaboratively with client executives, enterprise architects, engineering teams, and security/data leaders to design, build, and deploy production-grade AI solutions that deliver measurable business value.

This role emphasizes delivery leadership and hands-on technical depth, with less focus on executive sponsorship and more accountability for solution quality, execution rigor, and team outcomes.

In this role, you will lead multi-workstream enterprise AI and GenAI delivery programs, owning scope, planning, staffing models, dependencies, risk management, and client communications.

You will architect and oversee key technical decisions, including model selection, RAG design, context schemas, orchestration patterns, tool-use strategies, memory design, and evaluation frameworks.

You will establish and enforce engineering and delivery standards (ADLC-style phases, quality gates, testing/evaluations, observability, and release readiness) to ensure production-grade outcomes.

You will partner with enterprise architects to integrate AI capabilities across ERP, SCM, CRM, data platforms, identity, and middleware layers.

You will translate ambiguous business requirements into clear backlogs, technical specifications, and acceptance criteria, enabling rapid iteration while protecting security and compliance.

You will build reusable AI delivery assets, including reference architectures, accelerators, prompt and context libraries, evaluation harnesses, and delivery playbooks.

You will coach and mentor senior engineers and architects through design reviews, code reviews, and hands-on problem solving, raising the bar on engineering quality across teams.

You will consistently demonstrate the Cognizant Way to Lead, balancing client focus, delivery accountability, and financial discipline.

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 remote position; however, the role requires a hybrid and travel-based delivery model, including travel to client sites and Cognizant offices. The working arrangements for this role are accurate as of the date of posting and may change based on project or client needs. We will always be clear about role expectations.

What You Must Have To Be Considered

• 15–20 years of experience in software engineering, solution architecture, or enterprise technology delivery
• Proven experience delivering production enterprise systems in complex, regulated environments
• Hands-on experience designing and guiding delivery of LLM-powered applications, including RAG pipelines, tool-use agents, and multi-step workflows
• Strong command of cloud-native architectures (APIs, microservices, event-driven systems), plus security and observability best practices
• Practical experience with embeddings, semantic search, vector databases, re-rankers, and RAG evaluation frameworks
• Experience integrating AI solutions with enterprise platforms, data systems, and systems-of-record
• Demonstrated delivery leadership across large transformation programs (ERP modernization, cloud migration, data transformation)
• Comfort operating in regulated environments, with strong attention to privacy, security, auditability, and data residency
• Embodying the Cognizant Way to Lead: Leading Self, Leading Others, and Leading the Business
• Deep understanding of enterprise data architecture, governance, lineage, and operationalization for AI context and retrieval
• Strong experience with prompt and context engineering, including structured outputs and tool-use prompting
• Experience designing agentic systems using orchestration frameworks or custom implementations
• Exposure to DevSecOps, MLOps, or LLMOps practices in enterprise settings
• Prior client-facing consulting or embedded engineering experience in a professional services environment
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field; cloud certifications (AWS, Azure, GCP) preferred

Compensation

The annual base salary for this position is $162,000 - $257,000, based on experience. 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

Cognizant offers a competitive benefits package, which may include:

• Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance
• 401(k) plan with employer contributions
• Employee stock purchase plan
• Employee assistance program
• Paid holidays and paid time off
• Paid parental leave and fertility assistance
• Learning and development programs and certifications