Principal AI Platform Engineer - Onsite, San Leandro, California, United States

*Please note, this role is not able to offer visa transfer or sponsorship now or in the future*

About Us:

Cognizant is one of the world's leading professional services companies, transforming clients' business, operating, and technology models for the digital era. Our unique industry-based, consultative approach helps clients envision, build, and run more innovative and efficient businesses. Headquartered in the U.S., Cognizant, a member of the NASDAQ-100, is ranked 195 on the Fortune 500 and is consistently listed among the most admired companies in the world. Learn how Cognizant helps clients lead with digital at www.cognizant.com.

About Cognizant’s IoT Practice:

Intelligent, IoT-enabled products will soon result in the proliferation of data and disrupt virtually all industries. To be successful, both large and small companies must leverage IoT capabilities by designing modern products that fundamentally connect people with processes. Within Cognizant IOT, we engineer industry-aligned, IoT-enabled products that merge industry needs with human drivers. Our intelligent products will revolutionize experiences and result in exciting, transformative outcomes. Without human-centered thinking, connected products are just standalone things—but with it, our modern connected products facilitate a unified way of life enjoyed by all.

Principal AI Platform Engineer

Applied AI | Cloud Platforms | Industrial Software | Multicloud Engineering
Level: Principal / Senior Individual Contributor
Focus: Hands-on Engineering & Technical Leadership

The Opportunity

We are seeking a Principal AI Platform Engineer to design and deliver enterprise-scale AI and cloud platform solutions. This is a highly hands-on technical leadership role combining Applied AI, Generative AI, cloud-native engineering, distributed systems, Azure/AWS, and industrial software.

You will work closely with Product, R&D, Architecture, Cloud Operations, and customer-facing teams to build secure, scalable, reusable, and production-ready solutions.

Key Responsibilities

Design and build AI-enabled services, APIs, connectors, libraries, automation, and reusable platform components.
Develop production AI solutions using LLMs, Generative AI, RAG, AI agents, orchestration, vector search, grounding, evaluation, safety, monitoring, and cost optimization.
Architect cloud-native solutions using C#, .NET, ASP.NET Core, REST APIs, microservices, containers, Kubernetes, serverless, and event-driven architectures.
Engineer enterprise platforms across Microsoft Azure and AWS, including identity, data, messaging, API management, observability, Infrastructure as Code, and CI/CD.
Design and execute cloud migrations and Azure-to-AWS migration strategies, including networking, data movement, portability, resilience, cutover, and rollback.
Troubleshoot complex production issues involving performance, scalability, reliability, latency, security, and compliance.
Build solutions involving industrial/OT data, time-series data, historians, SCADA, MES, ERP/EAM, digital twins, and edge-to-cloud integration.
Use AI-assisted engineering for code modernization, refactoring, migration, performance analysis, testing, and developer productivity.
Provide technical leadership, influence architecture decisions, mentor engineers, and establish strong engineering practices.

Required Experience

Typically 10–15 years of relevant software engineering, AI, cloud/platform engineering, distributed systems, or industrial software experience.
Strong hands-on expertise in Applied AI and Generative AI, including production implementation of LLMs, RAG, agents, vector search, evaluation, grounding, safety, monitoring, latency, and cost management.
Strong backend engineering experience with C#, .NET, ASP.NET Core, APIs, microservices, containers, and Kubernetes.
Advanced hands-on experience across Azure and AWS, including compute, Kubernetes/containers, serverless, databases, storage, messaging, identity, secrets management, API management, monitoring, CI/CD, and Infrastructure as Code.
Experience with multicloud architecture and cloud migration, preferably including Azure-to-AWS migrations.
Understanding of industrial environments such as SCADA/OT, historians, MES, time-series data, ERP/EAM, digital twins, and edge/cloud integration.
Strong understanding of secure software engineering, testing, observability, deployment, scalability, performance, release readiness, and production support.
Ability to provide technical leadership and influence engineering teams without requiring direct people-management responsibility.

Highly Desirable

Experience designing and operating agentic AI systems that automate SDLC activities such as requirements analysis, coding, code review, testing, dependency upgrades, and release preparation.
Experience integrating AI agents with source control, CI/CD, and engineering tools, including human approval gates, scoped permissions, auditability, and security controls.
Experience deploying AI solutions in regulated, high-availability, industrial, or mission-critical environments.

What Success Looks Like

You will deliver secure, production-ready AI capabilities and reusable platform solutions while improving cloud portability, developer productivity, application performance, reliability, and customer value.

This is a Principal-level technical leadership role for someone who remains deeply hands-on. It is not primarily a people-management position.

Compensation: - $120,000 to $180,000 + 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. Application will be accepted by 11/27/2026

Benefits: Cognizant offers the following benefits for this position, subject to applicable eligibility requirements:

• 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

#LI-CT1

Sobre a Cognizant
Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH) é uma construtora de IA e fornecedora de serviços de tecnologia, criando a ponte entre o investimento em IA e o valor para as empresas por meio do desenvolvimento de soluções de IA completas para nossos clientes. Nossa profunda experiência em setores, processos e engenharia nos permite incorporar o contexto único de cada organização em sistemas tecnológicos que potencializam a capacidade humana, geram resultados tangíveis e mantêm empresas globais à frente em um mundo em rápida transformação. Saiba mais em cognizant.ai ou @cognizant.

A Cognizant é uma empregadora que investe em equidade. Sua candidatura não será pautada em raça, cor, gênero, sexualidade, credo, origem, deficiência, gravidez ou qualquer outra característica protegida pelas leis brasileiras.

Informações adicionais de emprego
Os candidatos podem ser obrigados a comparecer a entrevistas presenciais ou por videoconferência. Além disso, os candidatos podem ser obrigados a apresentar seu documento de identificação emitido pelo estado ou governo atual durante cada entrevista.

Embora nosso sistema permita a candidatura em todos os idiomas, o(s) idioma(s) e o(s) nível(is) de proficiência exigidos para o trabalho variam. No entanto, é necessário um nível básico de inglês para fins de comunicação em toda a empresa.

Se você tem uma deficiência que requer adaptações razoáveis para procurar uma vaga de emprego ou enviar uma candidatura, envie um e-mail para [email protected] com sua solicitação e informações de contato.