Senior Azure AI & GenAI Enterprise Architect

Cognizant; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 80,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Paid holidays

401(k) plan

Disability insurance

Parental leave

Employee stock purchase plan

Job summary

Cognizant is seeking a senior software architect and enterprise architect to drive AI and cloud initiatives in Washington, DC. You will lead market assessments, design end-to-end Azure architectures, and mentor cross-functional teams to deliver scalable solutions.

The role requires a decade of software and architecture experience, with strong Azure and API skills, and the ability to work across time zones. Expect production-grade delivery and governance responsibilities.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in computer science, software engineering, or related field.
• Minimum 10 years of experience in software engineering and solution architecture.
• Minimum 5 years of experience designing enterprise solutions on Microsoft Azure.
• Proven track record of delivering proofs-of-concept and scaling to production.
• Experience leading enterprise architecture and cloud transformation initiatives.
• Strong production engineering concepts: error handling, observability, and fault tolerance.
• Experience building APIs using FastAPI or similar frameworks.
• Proficiency with CI/CD pipelines and Git-based workflows.
• Ability to work autonomously in ambiguous spaces and collaborate across time zones.

Responsibilities

• Conduct market research on emerging AI platforms, foundation models, AI agents, orchestration frameworks, developer tools, and enterprise AI products.
• Analyze vendor offerings, market trends, product maturity, security considerations, and implementation models.
• Assess solutions against IFC requirements, enterprise architecture standards, and regulatory needs.
• Design end-to-end solution architectures leveraging Microsoft Azure services.
• Define architecture patterns for AI, cloud-native apps, integrations, APIs, data platforms, and automation.
• Ensure alignment with enterprise architecture, security, governance, and operations standards.
• Develop architecture artifacts, design documents, and implementation roadmaps.
• Integrate GenAI agents into existing back-end code, APIs, and data pipelines.
• Ensure production readiness with error handling, retries, idempotency, logging, and monitoring.
• Participate in the full software development lifecycle and production support.
• Collaborate with business stakeholders to refine requirements and solution vision.
• Support project teams through architecture reviews, assessments, and planning.
• Participate in architecture governance forums and design reviews.
• Mentor development teams on modern cloud and AI architecture practices.
• Participate in code reviews and contribute to engineering standards.
• Actively participate in Agile ceremonies, including sprint planning, stand-ups, and retrospectives.

Skills

Enterprise architecture

Azure cloud

API design

CI/CD

Agile

Leadership

Cross-functional teamwork

Problem-solving

Communication

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in CS/SE

Tools

Microsoft Azure

FastAPI

CI/CD pipelines

Git

Job description

Cognizant is seeking a senior software architect and enterprise architect to drive AI and cloud initiatives in Washington, DC. You will lead market assessments, design end-to-end Azure architectures, and mentor cross-functional teams to deliver scalable solutions.

The role requires a decade of software and architecture experience, with strong Azure and API skills, and the ability to work across time zones. Expect production-grade delivery and governance responsibilities.