Data Engineer

Cognizant; Irvine (CA); On-site; USD 64,000 - 95,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical/Dental/Vision/Life Insurance

Paid holidays plus PTO

401(k) plan and contributions

Long-term/Short-term Disability

Paid Parental Leave

Employee Stock Purchase Plan

Job summary

Cognizant is seeking an experienced data/ETL engineer to develop and optimize data pipelines, APIs, and BI data models in an on-site Irvine environment. You will leverage AI-assisted tools to accelerate coding while ensuring quality before production.

Responsibilities include enhancing SQL Server jobs, integrating with external systems, tuning performance, and providing production support for hundreds of data integration jobs. Strong English communication is essential.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of hands-on Microsoft SQL Server and T-SQL development experience.
• Advanced set-based T-SQL with window functions and CTEs; deduplication and up-to-date-key patterns.
• SQL Server Agent – building, scheduling, monitoring and troubleshooting job chains.
• SSIS – developing and maintaining packages and debugging failures.
• Azure Databricks – Notebooks, jobs/workflows, Spark SQL/PySpark, Delta Lake.
• MuleSoft – API integrations development and production monitoring.
• AI-assisted development tools usage with review, testing and validation before production.
• Performance tuning through execution plans, indexes and statistics; production support discipline.
• Strong written and spoken English; on-site Irvine, CA work requirement.

Responsibilities

• Experience with AI-assisted development tools to accelerate coding, troubleshooting, and documentation while reviewing AI output before production.
• Develop new data pipelines in Azure Databricks and contribute to the enterprise data lakehouse.
• Enhance and extend SQL Server Agent jobs, stored procedures, views and SSIS packages with required schema changes.
• Develop and extend data integrations with external systems and APIs using MuleSoft.
• Write and tune complex T-SQL against large data volumes; analyze execution plans and apply indexing and statistics strategies.
• Build and maintain data models and datasets for Power BI reporting, including publishing, scheduled refresh and gateway configuration.
• Perform data validation, reconciliation and data-quality checks across source and target systems.
• Provide production support for ~300 data integration jobs: monitor, triage, diagnose and resolve failures; root-cause analysis.

Skills

AI-assisted tools

Azure Databricks

SQL / T-SQL

Power BI data modeling

Data integration

MuleSoft

Data quality checks

Production support

Tools

Azure Databricks

SQL Server Agent

SSIS

MuleSoft

Databricks Genie

Claude Code

Cursor

OpenRouter

Job description

• Experience with using AI-assisted development tools (Cursor, Claude Code, Databricks Genie, OpenRouter, or similar) to accelerate coding, troubleshooting, and documentation, while reviewing and testing all AI-generated output before it reaches production.
• Develop new data pipelines in Azure Databricks, and contribute to the enterprise data lakehouse.
• Enhance and extend existing SQL Server Agent jobs, stored procedures, views, functions and SSIS packages, including the surrounding schema changes each enhancement requires.
• Develop, enhance and extend data integrations with external systems and APIs using Salesforce MuleSoft
• Write and tune complex T-SQL against large data volumes; analyze execution plans and apply indexing and statistics strategies to resolve performance problems.
• Build and maintain data models and datasets that support Power BI reporting, including publishing, scheduled refresh and gateway configuration.
• Perform data validation, reconciliation and data-quality checks across source and target systems.
• Provide production support for approximately 300 data integration jobs: monitor, triage, diagnose and resolve failures, and drive root-cause analysis so the same failure does not recur.
• Partner in person with team members, application developers, and business stakeholders across academic and administrative departments to gather requirements and deliver solutions.
• Communicate status, root causes and business impact clearly to non-technical stakeholders in written and verbal English.

In This Role, You Will

• Experience with using AI-assisted development tools (Cursor, Claude Code, Databricks Genie, OpenRouter, or similar) to accelerate coding, troubleshooting, and documentation, while reviewing and testing all AI-generated output before it reaches production.
• Develop new data pipelines in Azure Databricks, and contribute to the enterprise data lakehouse.
• Enhance and extend existing SQL Server Agent jobs, stored procedures, views, functions and SSIS packages, including the surrounding schema changes each enhancement requires.
• Develop, enhance and extend data integrations with external systems and APIs using Salesforce MuleSoft
• Write and tune complex T-SQL against large data volumes; analyze execution plans and apply indexing and statistics strategies to resolve performance problems.
• Build and maintain data models and datasets that support Power BI reporting, including publishing, scheduled refresh and gateway configuration.
• Perform data validation, reconciliation and data-quality checks across source and target systems.
• Provide production support for approximately 300 data integration jobs: monitor, triage, diagnose and resolve failures, and drive root-cause analysis so the same failure does not recur.
• Partner in person with team members, application developers, and business stakeholders across academic and administrative departments to gather requirements and deliver solutions.
• Communicate status, root causes and business impact clearly to non-technical stakeholders in written and verbal English.

At Cognizant, we strive to provide flexibility wherever possible, and we are here to support a healthy work-life balance through our various wellbeing programs. Based on this role's business requirements, this is an onsite position requiring 5 days a week in a client or Cognizant office in Irvine, CA.

The working arrangements for this role are accurate as of the date of posting. This may change based on the project you are engaged in, as well as business and client requirements. Rest assured; we will always be clear about role expectations.

What you need to have to be considered

• 5+ years of hands-on Microsoft SQL Server and T-SQL development experience.
• Advanced set-based T-SQL. Fluency with window functions (ROW_NUMBER, RANK, DENSE_RANK), common table expressions, deduplication and latest-record-per-key patterns, and conditional aggregation. Candidates should expect a hands-on exercise in this area – see the selection process below.
• SQL Server Agent – building, scheduling, monitoring and troubleshooting job chains in a production environment.
• SSIS – developing and maintaining packages, including debugging failures in deployed packages.
• Azure Databricks – demonstrable hands-on experience.Notebooks, jobs and workflows, Spark SQL and/or PySpark, and Delta Lake. This is a firm requirement, not a nice-to-have.
• MuleSoft – hands-on development of API integrations, including Mule flows, DataWeave transformations, error handling, deployment, and production monitoring.
• AI-assisted development ("vibe coding"). Demonstrated productive use of agentic coding tools such as Claude Code, Databricks Genie, OpenRouter, or Cursor to write, refactor, troubleshoot and document code – together with the engineering judgment to review, test and validate AI-generated output before it reaches production. Given how much of this role involves working inside unfamiliar inherited code, we regard this as a genuine productivity multiplier and we will ask candidates how they use these tools.
• Performance tuning – execution plan analysis, index design, statistics maintenance, and diagnosing queries that regress in production.
• Production support discipline – working incidents to resolution against service-level expectations, and communicating clearly while an issue is open.
• Professional written and spoken English sufficient to explain a technical problem, its cause and its business impact to a non-technical stakeholder such as a dean or department head.
• Ability to work 100% on site in Irvine, California during standard Pacific business hours. Remote work is not available for this position.

Salary And Other Compensation

The annual salary for this position is between $64,000 - $94,500 depending 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.

Benefits: Cognizant offers the following benefits for this position, subject to applicable eligibility requirements:

• Medical/Dental/Vision/Life Insurance
• Paid holidays plus Paid Time Off
• 401(k) plan and contributions
• Long-term/Short-term Disability
• Paid Parental Leave
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan

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 law.