Responsible AI Engineer
About the role
As a Responsible AI Engineer, you will make an impact by engineering the trust, safety, and governance layer for agentic AI systems deployed at enterprise scale. You will be a valued member of the AI Market Unit (FDE Pod) and work collaboratively with AI engineers, architects, risk teams, and client stakeholders to ensure every AI solution is safe, compliant, and production-ready.
In this role, you will:
- Design and implement runtime guardrails and safety architectures for LLM and agentic AI systems, including input/output controls, prompt injection detection, and policy enforcement mechanisms
- Lead red-teaming and adversarial testing initiatives to identify vulnerabilities such as jailbreaks, prompt injections, and trust boundary violations before production deployment
- Build and operationalize AI governance and compliance frameworks, translating regulations (e.g., EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF) into enforceable engineering controls
- Develop and deploy fairness, bias, and model evaluation pipelines, including hallucination detection, groundedness validation, and subgroup performance analysis
- Establish observability and auditability for AI systems through structured logging, audit trails, governance metrics, and incident response processes
Work model
At Cognizant, we strive to provide flexibility wherever possible, and we are here to support a healthy work-life balance through our various wellbeing programs. Based on this role’s business requirements, this is an onsite position requiring 5 days a week in a Cognizant office in Chennai, Bangalore, or Hyderabad.
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. Rest assured; we will always be clear about role expectations.
What you need to have to be considered
- Experience in software engineering or ML engineering, with hands-on exposure to AI safety, governance, or trust engineering
- Proven experience building and deploying LLM or agentic AI systems in enterprise or regulated environments
- Strong expertise in at least two of the following: guardrails engineering, red teaming, bias/fairness evaluation, AI regulatory compliance
- Working knowledge of AI regulatory frameworks such as EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF, ISO/IEC 42001, or sector-specific compliance standards
- Strong Python programming skills, with experience building evaluation pipelines, observability systems, or AI governance tooling
- Ability to collaborate with security, legal, and risk stakeholders, translating technical AI risks into actionable insights for business leaders
- Excellent communication and executive-level presentation skills, with experience presenting to senior client stakeholders
These will help you stand out
- Hands-on experience conducting red-team assessments on production AI systems and remediating critical vulnerabilities
- Experience creating audit-ready AI governance and compliance documentation for external or regulatory review
- Ability to influence AI system design decisions by balancing technical feasibility with regulatory and risk considerations
- Experience integrating fairness, safety evaluation, and monitoring pipelines into CI/CD workflows
- Exposure to enterprise AI tooling such as NeMo Guardrails, Giskard, Arize, LangChain/LangGraph, or similar ecosystems
We’re excited to meet people who share our mission and can make an impact in a variety of ways. Don’t hesitate to apply, even if you only meet the minimum requirements listed. Think about your transferable experiences and unique skills that make you stand out as someone who can bring new and exciting perspectives to this role.
What we offer
- The chance to work with impact. Here, you’re empowered to bring your biggest thinking to help our company and clients improve everyday life.
- Ownership over your career. Stay at the top of your game through our award-winning learning and development ecosystem. And when your ambitions change or we offer new opportunities, we help you pivot by providing reskilling, on-the-job learning and guidance to find new roles that might be a better fit.
- The opportunity to thrive on a high caliber team with heart. We celebrate each other’s experiences and perspectives and promote a sense of belonging through our affinity groups and diversity and inclusion initiatives.
- A comprehensive total rewards package, including a competitive salary and a pension plan with matching contributions.
- Flexible health and financial benefits to support you and your eligible dependents—from day one.
- True work-life balance. Be at your best through paid time off, flexible work arrangements, volunteering opportunities, social events, and so much more.
About us
Cognizant (Nasdaq: CTSH) is an AI Builder and technology services provider, building the bridge between AI investment and enterprise value by building full-stack AI solutions for our clients. Our deep industry, process and engineering expertise enables us to build an organization’s unique context into technology systems that amplify human potential, realize tangible returns and keep global enterprises ahead in a fast-changing world. See how at www.cognizant.com or @cognizant.
Other employment-related information
Cognizant is an equal opportunity employer. Your application and candidacy will not be considered based on race, color, sex, religion, creed, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, genetic information, pregnancy, veteran status or any other characteristic protected by federal, provincial or local laws.
If you have a disability that requires reasonable accommodation to search for a job opening or submit an application, please email [email protected] with your request and contact information.
Language requirements vary depending on roles, but we ask that all candidates have basic English proficiency for company-wide communications purposes. For roles based in Quebec, professional English proficiency is required, as you’ll deliver services to and collaborate with stakeholders outside the province who may not speak French.
