Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH) is a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process outsourcing services, dedicated to helping the world's leading companies build stronger businesses. Headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey (U.S.). Cognizant is a member of the NASDAQ-100, the S&P 500, the Forbes Global 1000, and the Fortune 500 and we are among the top performing and fastest growing companies in the world.
Lead Data Scientist role in a global enterprise focusing on advanced Agentic AI NLP open source LLMs and Generative AI. The role designs and delivers scalable AI solutions for hybrid work environments enabling responsible innovation that improves business outcomes and creates meaningful impact on customers and communities.
Responsibilities
Drive end to end design of Agentic AI solutions that orchestrate autonomous workflows and deliver measurable business outcomes for global stakeholders in a hybrid work environment.
Develop robust NLP models that extract insights from large scale multilingual text data to improve decision making and enhance customer experience across multiple channels.
Architect and implement open source LLM based solutions that are optimized for latency scalability and cost efficiency while maintaining strong performance on enterprise use cases.
Guide design of generative AI applications that create high quality content recommendations and summaries while adhering to responsible AI and data privacy standards.
Establish reusable frameworks prompts and evaluation methods that enable teams to rapidly proto@type and productize Agentic AI and generative AI capabilities.
Coordinate with product managers architects and engineering teams to translate complex business needs into technical AI roadmaps and backlog items with clear acceptance criteria.
Review data pipelines feature stores and model serving infrastructure to ensure that AI solutions remain reliable observable and maintainable in production environments.
Perform rigorous experimentation benchmarking and error analysis on LLMs and NLP models to continuously improve accuracy robustness and fairness across user segments.
Document solution designs experiment findings model cards and operational runbooks in a clear and comprehensive manner to support maintainability and audit readiness.
Collaborate with risk legal and compliance partners to embed governance model monitoring and ethical AI practices throughout the solution lifecycle.
Mentor senior data scientists and machine learning engineers through code reviews design discussions and knowledge sharing on Agentic AI NLP and LLM best practices.
Engage with business stakeholders to explain complex AI behaviors manage expectations and ensure that deployed solutions create transparent value for the organization and society.
Evaluate emerging open source LLMs frameworks and tooling to recommend pragmatic adoption paths that align with enterprise security cost and performance requirements.
Qualifications
Exhibit extensive hands on experience in designing and deploying Agentic AI systems that coordinate multiple tools or services to complete complex business tasks.
Demonstrate strong expertise in modern NLP techniques including transformers semantic search text classification summarization and conversational modeling.
Show proven track record in implementing and fine tuning open source LLMs using approaches such as instruction tuning parameter efficient methods and retrieval augmentation.
Apply deep understanding of generative AI concepts such as prompt engineering alignment content filtering and evaluation of generated text for quality and safety.
Utilize solid programming skills in languages like Python along with experience in machine learning libraries and deep learning frameworks appropriate for large models.
Employ sound knowledge of data engineering fundamentals including data quality feature engineering and MLOps practices for reliable model deployment and monitoring.
Display experience working in hybrid global teams using modern collaboration tools with the ability to manage priorities across multiple parallel AI initiatives.
Combine strong analytical thinking and problem solving abilities with clear communication skills that make complex AI concepts accessible to diverse stakeholders.
Apply understanding of responsible AI principles including bias detection explainability privacy preservation and human oversight in all AI design decisions.
Maintain awareness of current research and industry trends in Agentic AI NLP LLMs and generative AI and translate relevant advances into practical enterprise solutions.
Application Accepted: 7/30/2026
The annual salary for this position is between $150,000 - $160,000 depending on experience and other qualifications of the successful candidate.
Benefits: Cognizant offers the following benefits for this position, subject to applicable eligibility requirements:
· Medical, Dental & Vision Insurance
· 401(k) with Company Match
· Employee Stock Purchase Program
· Paid Time Off & Holidays
· Paid Parental Leave
· Short-Term & Long-Term Disability Coverage
· Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
· Mental Health & Wellbeing Programs
· Health Advocacy & Virtual Care Services
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 la
Our strength is built on our ability to work together. Our diverse backgrounds offer different perspectives and new ways of thinking. It encourages lively discussions, creativity, productivity, and helps us build better solutions for our clients. We want someone who thrives in this setting and is inspired to craft meaningful solutions through true collaboration.
If you are content with ambiguity, excited by change, and excel through autonomy, we'd love to hear from you!
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Cognizant is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, national origin, disability, protected Veteran status, age, or any other characteristic protected by law.
