Lead AI/ML Engineer — Scalable Enterprise Analytics

Cognizant; Houston (TX); On-site; USD 133,000 - 157,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical/Dental/Vision/Life Insurance

Paid holidays and PTO

Disability coverage

Parental Leave

Job summary

Cognizant in Houston seeks a Lead AI/ML Developer to design, develop, deploy, and manage enterprise-scale AI/ML and analytics solutions. You will work with GCP Vertex AI, Gemini, Claude, Python, PySpark, and MLOps to deliver production-grade AI products and business-facing analytics.

The role requires hands-on AI/ML engineering plus technical leadership, cloud-native development, Azure DevOps, and BI integration, with onsite collaboration in the Houston client office.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in data/analytics/AI or advanced analytics roles with hands-on AI/ML development.
• 2+ years leading a developer pod or delivery team with code quality and mentoring responsibilities.
• Strong experience with GCP Vertex AI and production model deployment.
• Experience with Gemini, Claude, prompt engineering, RAG architectures, and Gen AI.
• Proficiency in Python, PySpark, SQL, Pandas, Scikit-learn, XGBoost, TensorFlow, PyTorch.
• Experience with forecasting models (ARIMA/SARIMA) and time-series analytics.
• CI/CD automation, GitHub, Docker, and MLOps practices.
• Knowledge of Snowflake, data quality, analytics consumption, and BI integration.
• Experience with Power BI/Looker/Tableau is a plus.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management; onsite collaboration in Houston.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end design, development, deployment, and support of AI/ML and predictive analytics.
• Build and operationalize models using Vertex AI, Pipelines, and Endpoints; manage model registry.
• Develop forecasting, classification, Regression, and Generative AI solutions with Python/PySpark.
• Design RAG-based solutions and prompt engineering patterns for LLM-powered analytics.
• Guide the AI/ML squad; perform code reviews and mentoring; enforce engineering best practices.
• Own solution design for AI/ML use cases from prototype to production deployment.
• Build CI/CD pipelines with Azure DevOps; manage Docker and artifact registries.
• Integrate ML outputs into BI platforms like Power BI, Looker, or Tableau for dashboards.
• Collaborate with engagement leads, data engineers, and BI teams on use-case discovery and roadmaps.
• Ensure model monitoring, governance, responsible AI, data quality, and reliability.

Skills

AI/ML Dev

GCP Vertex AI

Python

PySpark

SQL

Pandas

Scikit-learn

TensorFlow

PyTorch

Time series

Forecasting

Leadership

Tools

Docker

Azure DevOps

GitHub

Artifact Registry

MLOps

Job description

Cognizant in Houston seeks a Lead AI/ML Developer to design, develop, deploy, and manage enterprise-scale AI/ML and analytics solutions. You will work with GCP Vertex AI, Gemini, Claude, Python, PySpark, and MLOps to deliver production-grade AI products and business-facing analytics.

The role requires hands-on AI/ML engineering plus technical leadership, cloud-native development, Azure DevOps, and BI integration, with onsite collaboration in the Houston client office.