Senior Architect - Data Science

Cognizant; Hyderabad; On-site; INR 4,000,000 - 7,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Cognizant in Hyderabad is seeking a Senior Architect focused on Data Science to lead Azure-based modernization across multiple teams. You will translate client goals into scalable designs, guide delivery, and influence architecture beyond a single project.

You will mentor architects and engineers, support strategic pursuits, and drive reusable patterns to achieve measurable business outcomes in a dynamic, global delivery environment.

Qualifications

• Senior Architect with deep Azure data and AI experience.
• Proven track record in multi-team architecture and delivery.
• Strong leadership, mentoring, and client-facing skills.
• Experience with modernization programs and end-to-end guidance.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture and technical direction for Azure modernization across multiple teams.
• Translate client goals into scalable designs aligning with business priorities.
• Drive architecture across teams with shared models, standards, and patterns.
• Collaborate with domain architects to ensure cohesive end-to-end solutions.
• Provide architectural reviews, patterns, and guardrails for repeatable delivery.
• Apply best practices in modular design, testability, and observability.

Skills

Azure

Data Science

Architecture

Leadership

ML Ops

Cloud security

Tools

Azure Databricks

Python

GitHub

CI/CD

Job description

Skill: Senior Architect - Data Science

Exp: 9 to 13 years

Location: Hyderabad

Shift: Flexible to work in Shifts

The Senior Architect in Delivery leads architecture and technical direction for multi-team Azure programs across applications, platforms, and data. You connect client goals to scalable designs, guide delivery across teams, and shape modernization work so it delivers measurable results.

At this level, you influence architecture beyond a single project. You set direction across engagements, work with business and technology leaders, raise the bar on delivery quality, and promote reusable patterns. You mentor architects and senior engineers, support strategic pursuits, and turn working solutions into repeatable delivery models.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture and technical strategy for Azure modernization and transformation programs that span multiple teams and workstreams.
• Translate client goals into scalable designs that align with business priorities, non-functional requirements, delivery constraints, and program-level outcomes.
• Drive architecture across teams so designs follow shared models, standards, and patterns.
• Collaborate with architects and engineers in other domains to integrate solutions and maintain a cohesive end-to-end architecture.
• Provide ongoing architectural guidance during implementation, including reviews of key designs and code, and define patterns and guardrails that teams can reuse.
• Apply solid engineering practices in your primary domain—modular design, clear interfaces, testability, and observability—so solutions remain robust and maintainable.
• Use AI-assisted tooling to accelerate design, code, tests, documentation, and analysis, and help teams adopt effective practices at program scale.

Delivery and Consulting Excellence

• Lead or co-lead discovery and roadmap work for programs or large workstreams, turning inputs into integrated, testable backlogs with clear non-functional requirements and dependencies.
• Use structured problem solving to clarify scope, dependencies, and risks at program scale, and explain options in terms of value, cost, risk, and time-to-impact.
• Communicate architecture strategy and decisions clearly to technical and non-technical audiences, including executives.
• Build trusted relationships with product, engineering, and technology leaders, and help shape modernization roadmaps in the client’s best interest.
• Provide architecture oversight so designs, interfaces, and integration points support predictable delivery and stable team velocity.
• Align multiple teams on shared outcomes, contracts, and integration points, ensuring dependencies are identified, owned, and tracked through to delivery.
• Help define delivery approaches, working agreements, and documentation practices that keep 3Cloud and client teams aligned across locations and time zones.
• Support effective use of Agile at scale by ensuring architecture and backlog structure enable incremental delivery, clear definitions of done, and data-informed adjustments based on telemetry and feedback.
• Apply a consulting mindset by anticipating client needs, proposing options, and tying solutions to clear results and adoption, and handle challenge and pushback by explaining trade-offs in simple, direct language.
• 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.
• 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.

Mentorship and Team Development

• Mentor architects, senior engineers, and technical leads, building their design skills, architectural judgment, and ability to work effectively across systems and teams.
• Provide architectural oversight across teams or workstreams, modeling pragmatic decision-making and showing when to keep solutions simple and when new patterns or technologies are justified.
• Support hiring and growth by participating in technical interviews, calibration discussions, and mentorship, and by helping shape development plans for future architects.

Growth and Innovation

• Contribute to business development by identifying opportunities beyond the current assignment across all our capabilities and assisting the sales director in pursuing them.
• Intentionally builds relationship networks within client accounts to deepen partnership and identify opportunities to provide additional business value.
• Partner with sales and account leaders on strategic pursuits by setting the technical vision, contributing to solution strategy, and participating in client workshops, demos, and roadmap sessions.
• Create solution options, high-level designs, and estimates for programs, clearly documenting assumptions, dependencies, and risks and tying them back to business value and risk reduction.
• Build and evolve reusable assets—such as reference architectures, runbooks, workshops, starter repositories, and templates—that become standard paths for delivery teams.
• Champion adoption of modern frameworks, patterns, platform capabilities, automation, and AI-assisted tools that improve quality, speed, or reliability in a safe and secure way.
• Actively participate in enablement initiatives, share lessons from complex engagements, and help build a culture of collaboration, continuous improvement, and knowledge sharing.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience delivering solutions in a primary technical domain.
• 5+ years of experience in solution architecture and leading development or engineering teams, including multi-team or multi-workstream efforts.
• 8-10 years in data science, machine learning, and Azure cloud technologies.
• Deep expertise across most of the following:
• Machine Learning Systems & MLOps – designing model pipelines, retraining workflows, and model monitoring using Azure ML, Databricks MLflow, or equivalent frameworks.
• Data Engineering & Integration – building data pipelines with Spark, Azure Data Factory, Synapse, or Fabric; applying governance, lineage, and quality controls.
• Feature Engineering & Model Development – applying supervised and unsupervised learning, time series, and advanced modeling techniques using Python and Spark.
• Model Deployment & Operations – integrating ML models into production systems with APIs, containers, and DevOps practices.
• Data Architecture & Storage – implementing scalable solutions using Azure Data Lake, Delta Lake, and Blob Storage.
• Responsible AI & Compliance – applying fairness, interpretability, and privacy best practices within ML lifecycle governance.
• Analytics & Visualization – developing insights through Power BI or similar tools.
• Familiarity with generative and agentic AI concepts (Prompt Flow, RAG, Semantic Kernel, AutoGen, CrewAI) is a plus.
• Proficiency with modern development tools such as GitHub, Copilot, and CI/CD systems.
• Familiarity with data governance and metadata management practices.
• Relevant Azure or Databricks certifications in AI, Data, or Architecture.
• Proven experience leading architecture and delivery for Azure-based solutions such as modernizations, transformations, or platform build-outs.
• Ability to define solution architectures that connect business goals to scalable technical designs and solid delivery practices.
• Experience leading hybrid and remote teams and maintaining alignment, quality, and predictable delivery across time zones.
• Deep knowledge of core concepts, languages, frameworks, and design patterns in your primary domain, with the ability to apply them at program scale.
• Experience using AI-augmented development and integrating AI or machine learning capabilities into solutions using APIs, frameworks, or cloud-based AI services.
• Experience with Agile or Scrum at scale, including backlog management, work slicing, and dependency handling.
• Experience in consulting or professional services.
• Familiarity with key Azure services relevant to your domain, such as messaging, compute, data, security, networking, and integration.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with clear written and verbal communication.
• Demonstrated interest in learning new cloud technologies and turning that learning into practical improvements for teams.
• Ability to stay hands-on with architecture and, when needed, implementation while guiding complex cloud solutions across teams.