AI Engineer

Cognizant; Toronto; On-site; CAD 80,000 - 99,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical/Dental/Vision/Life Insurance

Paid holidays + PTO

Long-term/Short-term Disability

Paid Parental Leave

Employee Stock Purchase Plan

Job summary

Cognizant is hiring an AI Engineer to build scalable data pipelines and AI services for production workloads in a mixed on-premise and cloud environment.

The role requires deep Python expertise, data modeling, and hands-on work with LLMs, RAG pipelines, and agentic AI frameworks. Collaboration across engineering, research, and product teams is essential for success.

Qualifications

• Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field with 5+ years in data/software/ML/AI engineering (preferred).
• Advanced Python proficiency with software engineering fundamentals.
• Proficiency in SQL and distributed computing (Spark).
• Hands-on experience with LLM applications, RAG pipelines, and LangChain/LangGraph.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain scalable batch and streaming data pipelines for ingestion, transformation, and curation.
• Design and optimize data models, feature stores, and storage patterns for AI/ML workloads.
• Implement DataOps and MLOps automation (CI/CD, data validation, model deployment, monitoring).
• Design, build, and optimize agentic AI systems and LLM-powered applications (RAG pipelines, agent orchestration).
• Develop and integrate AI services into secure, production-grade environments.
• Translate business requirements into technical solutions through cross-functional collaboration.
• Ensure code quality, system reliability, scalability, and observability.

Skills

Python

SQL

Spark

Data modeling

LLM apps

Kubernetes

CI/CD

AWS/Azure

React

Education

Master's degree in Computer Science/related field

Tools

Git/GitHub Actions

Docker

Job description

Job Title - AI Engineer

Location – Halifax

Responsibilities:

• Build and maintain scalable batch and streaming data pipelines for ingestion, transformation, and curation
• Design and optimize data models, feature stores, and storage patterns for AI/ML workloads
• Implement DataOps and MLOps automation (CI/CD, data validation, model deployment, monitoring, drift detection)
• Design, build, and optimize agentic AI systems and LLM-powered applications (RAG pipelines, agent orchestration)
• Develop and integrate AI services into secure, production-grade environments
• Design and implement AI systems architecture best practices and standards across the organization
• Build scalable, resilient cloud and on-premise systems for hosting AI/LLM applications
• Provide infrastructure design, optimization, and monitoring support
• Translate business requirements into technical solutions through cross-functional collaboration
• Ensure code quality, system reliability, scalability, and observability

Expectations / Skillset Required:

• Advanced Python proficiency with strong software engineering fundamentals (version control, testing, code reviews)
• Proficiency in SQL and distributed computing (Spark, distributed systems)
• Deep experience with data modeling and feature engineering across the ML lifecycle
• Hands-on experience building LLM applications, RAG pipelines, and agentic AI frameworks (LangChain/LangGraph preferred)
• Expertise designing distributed systems at enterprise scale
• Strong CI/CD and DevOps knowledge (GitHub/GitHub Actions, Docker, Kubernetes)
• Experience with event streaming platforms (Kafka)
• Demonstrated ability to design and deploy hybrid cloud and on-premise systems (AWS, Azure)
• Excellent collaboration and communication skills across engineering, research, and product teams
• Self-directed problem-solving mindset and ability to navigate enterprise complexity
• Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field with 5+ years in data/software/ML/AI engineering (preferred)
• UI development expertise with React and JavaScript (a plus)

Benefits:

• Medical/Dental/Vision/Life Insurance
• Paid holidays plus Paid Time Off
• Long-term/Short-term Disability
• Paid Parental Leave
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan

The annual salary for this position is between $80-99Kdepending on experience and other qualifications of the successful candidate.

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.

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, subject to applicable la