Azure AI Engineer: RAG Systems & Production APIs

Cognizant; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 110,000 - 135,000; Full time

Job summary

Cognizant in Washington, DC seeks an AI Engineer to design, build, and operate production-grade generative AI systems on Azure. You will own end-to-end RAG solutions from data ingestion to deployed services and APIs.

You will develop agentic AI workflows with LangChain/LangGraph, integrate Azure OpenAI, and optimize prompts for performance and cost, while ensuring observability and security. Proficient in Python, REST APIs, and containerized deployments.

Qualifications

• Hands-on Python experience for backend services and automation.
• Hands-on experience with LangChain and/or LangGraph.
• Experience with RAG, embeddings, and vector search.
• Hands-on experience with Azure OpenAI and Azure AI Search.
• Proficiency with REST APIs, JSON, and Git.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement end-to-end RAG pipelines: data ingestion, embedding generation, vector database management, and retrieval optimization.
• Develop and maintain APIs that orchestrate RAG workflows, including retrieval, prompt handling, and model interaction.
• Build orchestration and multi-step reasoning workflows using Semantic Kernel, LangChain, or LangGraph, incorporating tool use and memory.
• Integrate LLMs such as Azure OpenAI, and tune prompts for accuracy, performance, and cost.
• Implement observability, monitoring, and evaluation frameworks using LangSmith and Azure monitoring tools to track output quality, latency, and hallucination rates.
• Deploy and manage AI services on Azure using CI/CD pipelines and containerization.
• Build and maintain scalable web applications using Python, Node.js, and React.
• Apply responsible AI practices, including guardrails, security controls, and compliance standards.

Skills

Python

LangChain

LangGraph

RAG

Embeddings

Vector search

Azure OpenAI

Azure AI Search

REST APIs

Git

Tools

Semantic Kernel

Azure Monitor/Application Insights

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Cognizant in Washington, DC seeks an AI Engineer to design, build, and operate production-grade generative AI systems on Azure. You will own end-to-end RAG solutions from data ingestion to deployed services and APIs.

You will develop agentic AI workflows with LangChain/LangGraph, integrate Azure OpenAI, and optimize prompts for performance and cost, while ensuring observability and security. Proficient in Python, REST APIs, and containerized deployments.