Senior Consultant - M365 Search & AI Solutions
Role Overview
We are seeking a highly experienced Senior Consultant - M365 Search & AI Solutions to design, develop, and deliver enterprise-grade AI, Copilot Search, enterprise search, integration, web architecture, and business application solutions across Microsoft 365, Azure, SharePoint, Power Platform, and third-party SaaS platforms.
The ideal candidate will bring strong hands-on engineering experience combined with technical leadership capabilities across enterprise search, Microsoft Graph Search, Azure AI, Retrieval-Augmented Generation, Copilot Studio, Azure AI Foundry, Power Platform governance, web application architecture, DevOps delivery, and production support.
Please note, this role is not able to offer visa transfer or sponsorship now or in the future.
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 hybrid position requiring 2-3 days a week in a client or Cognizant office in Raleigh, NC. Regardless of your working arrangement, we are here to support a healthy work-life balance though our various wellbeing programs
Key Responsibilities
· Lead the architecture, design, and implementation of enterprise search and AI-powered knowledge discovery solutions using Azure AI Search, Microsoft Graph, Microsoft 365 content sources, custom connectors, and secure API integrations.
· Design and configure Copilot Search and Microsoft Graph Search experiences, including search verticals, result types, result layouts, refiners, custom connectors, permissions-aware retrieval, and enterprise search relevance improvements.
· Define and manage enterprise search schemas, including crawled properties, managed properties, metadata mapping, content enrichment, indexing rules, connector configuration, crawl/index scheduling, re-indexing strategy, and search quality monitoring.
· Design and implement Retrieval-Augmented Generation solutions that ground AI responses in trusted enterprise content while supporting relevance tuning, semantic search, vector search, hybrid retrieval, access control, and responsible AI guardrails.
· Build scalable agentic AI solutions using Microsoft Copilot Studio and Azure AI Foundry, including agent orchestration, tool calling, workflows, knowledge grounding, prompt design, evaluation, and production readiness.
· Develop and review application components using C#, .NET, Python, REST APIs, Azure Functions, Logic Apps, and cloud-native integration patterns.
· Design and support modern web application architecture using ASP.NET, React, REST APIs, layered application patterns, front-end integration, backend services, authentication, deployment, and maintainability best practices.
· Support server infrastructure and production troubleshooting activities, including IIS configuration, application pool management, load balancing, SSL certificates, request routing, logs, performance bottlenecks, and environment-level issue resolution.
· Integrate third-party platforms, enterprise systems, and SaaS applications using secure APIs, middleware, event-driven patterns, and authentication mechanisms such as OAuth, Microsoft Entra ID, and certificate-based authentication.
· Provide technical leadership to onshore and offshore development teams, including sprint planning, code reviews, design reviews, task prioritisation, dependency tracking, and delivery risk management.
· Establish Power Platform governance practices covering environment strategy, DLP policies, connector usage, solution lifecycle management, ALM, security roles, maker standards, and monitoring.
· Design and deliver SharePoint customisation solutions, including modern pages, lists, libraries, metadata models, content types, permissions, SPFx components, custom forms, and integrations with Microsoft 365 services.
· Develop Power Apps and Power Automate solutions to digitise business processes, automate approvals, integrate systems, improve productivity, and enforce governance standards across environments.
· Support AWS service integration where required, including cloud storage, serverless components, API services, identity integration, monitoring, and cross-cloud architecture alignment.
· Drive DevOps execution using Azure DevOps Boards, backlogs, work items, sprint planning, release tracking, CI/CD pipelines, test automation, and deployment governance.
· Analyse and improve application performance, search relevance, response latency, scalability, monitoring, logging, and operational reliability across AI, search, and integration workloads.
· Collaborate with product owners, architects, security teams, business stakeholders, and platform teams to translate requirements into practical technical designs and measurable delivery outcomes.
· Prepare solution design documents, architecture diagrams, technical standards, deployment guides, and operational runbooks to support sustainable delivery and knowledge transfer.
Required Qualifications
· 10+ years of progressive experience in software engineering, cloud solution delivery, enterprise platform engineering, or related technology roles, including experience as a Technical Lead or Senior Engineer.
· Strong experience in enterprise search architecture, Copilot Search, Microsoft Graph Search, search connectors, search relevance, indexing, ranking, search schema, metadata design, Microsoft Graph APIs, REST APIs, and secure content retrieval.
· Hands-on experience configuring search schemas, crawled properties, managed properties, result sources, search verticals, refiners, permissions trimming, connector indexing, incremental indexing, full re-indexing, and index scheduling for enterprise content sources.
· Hands-on experience with Azure AI services, Azure AI Search, Azure Functions, Logic Apps, App Registrations, Microsoft Entra ID, and secure cloud integration design.
· Practical experience designing and implementing Retrieval-Augmented Generation solutions using vector search, semantic search, chunking strategies, embeddings, grounding patterns, evaluation, and governance controls.
· Proficiency in C#, .NET, and Python for backend development, API development, automation, data processing, and AI application engineering.
· Experience designing and developing web applications using React, ASP.NET, REST APIs, authentication frameworks, reusable components, secure coding practices, and enterprise web architecture patterns.
· Experience with Microsoft Copilot Studio, Azure AI Foundry, agent development, prompt engineering, agent workflows, tool integration, knowledge sources, and enterprise deployment considerations.
· Experience with Power Platform governance and hands-on development, including Power Apps, Power Automate, Dataverse, managed environments, DLP policies, custom connectors, solution packaging, connector governance, and ALM practices.
· Experience with SharePoint Online customisation, including site architecture, lists, libraries, metadata, content types, permissions, SPFx, Power Platform integrations, and Microsoft 365 collaboration patterns.
· Strong understanding of third-party integration patterns, API security, error handling, retry strategies, observability, and data exchange standards.
· Experience managing delivery through Azure DevOps Boards, including epics, features, user stories, tasks, defects, sprint planning, status reporting, and release coordination.
· Strong performance troubleshooting skills across APIs, search workloads, AI responses, cloud services, application telemetry, and end-user experience.
· Experience troubleshooting IIS-hosted applications and server infrastructure issues, including application pools, bindings, SSL, load balancing, reverse proxies, logging, memory usage, CPU utilisation, and response-time degradation.
· Proven ability to lead distributed onshore and offshore teams through design, build, testing, deployment, and production support phases.
· Strong communication skills with the ability to explain complex AI, cloud, search, and integration concepts to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
· Experience working in Agile delivery models with strong ownership of technical estimation, dependency management, risk mitigation, and delivery governance.
Preferred Qualifications
· Experience with AWS infrastructure services, including VPC, EC2, IAM, S3, API Gateway, CloudWatch and related networking, security and monitoring patterns.
· Hands-on experience with AWS Lambda and serverless application design, including event triggers, API integrations, permissions, logging and operational monitoring.
· Experience with Azure infrastructure services, including App Service, Azure Functions, Storage, Key Vault, Virtual Networks, Application Gateway, Load Balancer, Azure Monitor and deployment automation.
· Experience developing custom connectors for Power Platform, Copilot Studio, Microsoft Graph connectors or third-party API integrations.
· Experience with monitoring and observability tools such as Application Insights, Azure Monitor, Log Analytics. Google analytics or equivalent monitoring services.
Pay Transparency
The annual salary range for this role is $80,000 – $140,000 USD, depending on experience, skills, qualifications, and internal equity.
This position is also eligible for a comprehensive benefits package.
Benefits
- 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
Disclaimer
The salary, other compensation, and benefits information is accurate as of the date of this posting. Cognizant reserves the right to modify this information at any time.
#LI-AS5
IND123
#CB
About Cognizant:
Cognizant (Nasdaq: CTSH) is an AI Builder and technology services provider, bridging the gap 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, drive tangible outcomes and keep global enterprises ahead in a fast-changing world. See how at cognizant.ai or @cognizant.
Additional employment information
Compensation 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.
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, state 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.
