Frontier Engineer

Cognizant; Chennai District; On-site; INR 5,000,000 - 9,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Cognizant is seeking a distinguished frontier engineer to design enterprise-scale AI systems and govern responsible-AI delivery across cross-domain programs. You will lead architecture workshops, define guardrails, and own the design of AI delivery at scale across multiple platforms and sectors.

Experience includes enterprise AI architecture leadership and the ability to drive standards from governance to implementation.

Qualifications

• Core skills include AI-native enterprise architecture and guardrail design.
• Competencies cover Responsible-AI, ADLC governance, and cross-domain guidance.

Responsibilities

• Design AI-native enterprise architectures for complex delivery programmes.
• Author guardrail specifications and boundary docs for agentic systems.
• Lead client architecture reviews and produce context-pipeline blueprints.
• Govern ADLC adoption and set AI code-quality standards.
• Architect responsible-AI frameworks including bias, explainability and audit-trail.
• Design regulated AI decisioning systems with compliance controls.

Skills

AI-native architecture

Guardrail design

Responsible-AI framework

Context-pipeline at scale

ADLC governance

Cross-platform AI integration

AIOps orchestration

Regulated AI design

Frontier-model evaluation

Human-agent modelling

Job description

ABOUT THE ROLE

The senior technical leader who designs the enterprise-scale AI systems behind Cognizant's most complex client transformations. Defines human-agent capability matrices, authors guardrail specifications, leads client architecture workshops, and owns the intellectual design of AI delivery at scale, cross-domain, cross-platform and cross-sector. From responsible-AI governance to regulated decisioning systems, the Distinguished Frontier Engineer sets the standard rather than meeting it, and technically leads cohorts of Frontier Engineers and Masters.

WHAT YOU WILL DO

• Design AI-native enterprise architectures and define human-agent capability matrices for delivery programmes.
• Author guardrail specifications and boundary documentation for agentic systems at enterprise scale.
• Lead client architecture review workshops and produce context-pipeline blueprints.
• Govern ADLC adoption across the portfolio; define standards for AI-generated code quality.
• Architect responsible-AI frameworks: bias detection, explainability and audit-trail design.
• Design regulated AI decisioning systems with compliance controls for relevant domains.

WHAT YOU BRING

Core skills: AI-native enterprise architecture, Guardrail specification & responsible-AI framework design, Context-pipeline architecture at scale, ADLC delivery governance, Cross-platform AI integration strategy, AIOps orchestration architecture, Regulated AI decisioning design, Frontier-model evaluation & red-teaming, Human-agent capability modelling.

Competencies: Enterprise AI Architecture, Responsible-AI & Guardrail Design, ADLC Governance & Standards, Technical Leadership & Advisory, AI Quality & Evaluation Design, Domain Fluency & Contextual Judgment, Business-Outcome Orientation.

ENTRY AND GROWTH

Experience: 12-22 yrs with enterprise AI architecture leadership.

Entry: Demonstrate enterprise-scale AI architecture and responsible-AI leadership; pass the Frontier CoE assessment at Architect level.

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE

Builds, ships and permanently owns AI-native systems end to end in a small Frontier pod, and is measured on the customer outcome the pod commits to, not on technical throughput alone.