Skill: Architect – Data Platforms & Architecture
Exp: 9 to 13 years
Location: Hyderabad
Shift: Night Shift
The Architect in Delivery is a hands-on technical lead for cloud solutions. You design and deliver secure, scalable, and maintainable systems on Azure that solve real business problems. You own end-to-end architecture for your projects, stay close to implementation where it matters, and work with teams to meet goals for value, security, performance, reliability, and cost.
At this level, you lead solution design in your primary domain, guide engineers day to day, and mentor other architects and technical leads. You turn business needs into clear technical plans, help teams make good tradeoffs, and keep delivery predictable and high quality.
Responsibilities
Solution Architecture and Technical Leadership
· Own end-to-end architecture and scope for your projects, leading teams to design and deliver Azure solutions that meet agreed goals for value, security, scalability, reliability, performance, and cost.
· Serve as the technical lead and subject matter expert on your engagements, guiding consultants and engineers so implementation stays aligned with the architecture and standards.
· Apply sound engineering practices—clear interfaces, modular design, and testability—to produce reliable, maintainable solutions in your primary domain.
· Provide architectural guidance throughout implementation, including design and pull-request reviews, shaping cloud patterns and guardrails and offering practical options to unblock teams.
· Use AI tools to accelerate code, tests, documentation, and similar tasks, and share effective practices so they become repeatable gains for teams and clients.
· Design end-to-end data architectures spanning ingestion, lakehouse, and consumption.
· Delivery and Consulting Excellence
· Lead discovery and requirements sessions for your workstreams, clarifying scope, dependencies, and risks, and shaping a prioritized backlog with clear acceptance criteria tied to business outcomes.
· Explain complex technical topics in simple, direct language for both technical and non-technical audiences, and consistently connect technical decisions back to client goals.
· Build trust with managers and product owners, influencing priorities and roadmaps in ways that support the client’s long-term interests.
· Enable teams to deliver with stable velocity and low defect rates by providing clear architecture, interfaces, and automation across build, test, and deployment, and by designing for incremental delivery with a clear Definition of Done.
· Align multiple teams on shared outcomes, contracts, and integration points, ensuring dependencies are identified early, owned, and tracked through delivery.
· Support effective Agile practices by ensuring the architecture and backlog structure enable incremental delivery, a clear Definition of Done, and data-informed course corrections based on telemetry and feedback.
· Mentorship and Team Development
· Mentor others through pairing, design reviews, and clear feedback that strengthens design skills, technical judgment, and confidence, with a particular focus on senior engineers and technical leads.
· Provide architectural oversight across teams or workstreams, modeling pragmatic decision-making and teaching others when to keep designs simple and when to introduce new patterns or technologies.
· Support hiring and growth by participating in technical interviews, calibration discussions, and cross-project mentorship.
Growth and Innovation
o Contribute to business development by identifying opportunities across all our capabilities (beyond own specialty) and communicating them to the sales director.
o Partner with sales and account leaders on pursuits by defining the cloud vision, contributing architectural viewpoints, and participating in client workshops, demos, and roadmap discussions.
o Produce solution options, high-level designs, and estimates in your domains, clearly documenting assumptions, dependencies, and risks and explaining how proposed approaches drive business value and reduce risk.
o Create and maintain reusable assets—such as runbooks, workshops, starter repositories, and templates—that make it easier for engineers to deliver consistent solutions.
o Champion modern frameworks, patterns, tools, and AI-assisted practices that improve quality, speed, or reliability in a secure and responsible way.
o Actively participate in enablement efforts that support a culture of collaboration, continuous improvement, and knowledge sharing.
Requirements
o 6+ years of experience delivering solutions in a primary domain such as application development, cloud platform engineering, DevOps, or data and analytics.
o 3+ years of experience in solution architecture and leading development or engineering teams.
o Proven experience leading hybrid and remote teams and maintaining alignment, quality, and predictable delivery across time zones.
o Expertise in at least one major public cloud platform, with Azure strongly preferred.
o Deep understanding of core concepts, languages, frameworks, and design patterns in your primary domain, with the ability to apply them to build robust, maintainable systems.
o Experience using AI-augmented development and integrating AI or machine learning capabilities into solutions through APIs, libraries, or cloud-based AI services.
o 7–10 years of experience in data engineering and platform design.
o Proven experience designing enterprise data solutions.
o Deep hands-on expertise with Databricks and Azure data services.
o Experience working in Agile or Scrum environments, including backlog refinement and iteration planning.
o Experience in consulting or professional services is a plus.
o Familiarity with key cloud services for your domain, such as messaging, compute, data, security, networking, and integration.
o Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with clear written and verbal communication.
o Demonstrated interest in continuous learning and adoption of new cloud technologies.
o Ability to be hands-on with implementation while also designing and communicating complex cloud architectures.
o Demonstrated ability to leverage AI and emerging technologies to improve productivity, enhance decision-making, streamline delivery processes, and drive measurable business value. Commitment to continuous learning and adoption of new digital capabilities is required.
o Proven success operating within large, matrixed consulting organizations and navigating the scale, complexity, governance, and pace of a Global System Integrator (GSI) environment.
· Ability to manage competing priorities, collaborate across cross-functional teams, and consistently deliver results in a fast-paced, performance-driven setting.
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.
Applicants must be currently authorized to work for any employer in the United States. The company is unable to provide employment-based immigration sponsorship for this position.
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.
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.
