Principal AI Customer Engineer

About the role

As an AI Customer Engineer, you will make an impact by leading client discovery, solution shaping, and AI-driven opportunity development that helps organizations realize tangible business value from GenAI and AI. You will be a valued member of Cognizant’s AI Sales Engineering organization and work closely with sales, industry specialists, design and engineering teams, and ecosystem partners to bring high-value AI use cases from ideation through deal closure.

Responsibilities

• Lead early-stage discovery and art-of-the-possible ideation sessions, helping clients and account teams explore how GenAI and AI can address critical business challenges
• Translate ambiguous client needs into solution hypotheses, conceptual flows, and “north star” AI scenarios that articulate business impact and differentiation
• Shape end-to-end AI solution architectures, defining data, ML, integration patterns, and partner components
• Develop and present client-ready solution artifacts, including proposals, statements of work, architecture decks, value frameworks, and demo narratives
• Orchestrate cross-functional pursuit teams, ensuring alignment across sales, industry specialists, engineering, delivery, and ecosystem partners
• Guide opportunities through governance checkpoints and ensure smooth handoff to delivery teams with validated architectures and clear assumptions

Requirements

• Experience in AI/ML, GenAI, or solution architecture, with exposure to large language models and enterprise AI platforms
• Proven ability to lead structured discovery, ideation workshops, and technical deep dives with client stakeholders
• Demonstrated success shaping and progressing complex AI-driven opportunities, including proposals and solution design
• Strong understanding of enterprise data architectures, ML pipelines, cloud platforms, and system integration
• Able to collaborate across sales, engineering, design, and delivery teams to influence outcomes

Qualifications

• Experience creating AI prototypes, MVPs, or proofs of concept during pursuit or pre-sales cycles
• Exposure to hyperscalers, AI platforms, and partner ecosystems
• Track record of orchestrating multi-disciplinary pursuit teams and managing solution trade-offs
• Strong storytelling skills that connect technical solutions to business value
• Background in AI consulting, sales engineering, or technical advisory roles
• Hires, scales, and leads a high-performance AI engineering organization

Pay

The annual base salary for this position is between $200,000 - $250,000 depending on the experience and other qualifications of the successful candidate. 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.

Schedule

This is a hybrid position requiring 2-3 days per week in a client or Cognizant office in the United States. 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.

Benefits

• Cognizant offers the following benefits for this position, subject to applicable eligibility requirements: Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance
• Paid holidays and paid time off
• 401(k) plan with employer contributions
• Long-term and short-term disability coverage
• Paid parental leave
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan