Chief Product Architect - Cognitive Intelligence Spine Platform
Cognizant· enterprise· IT Services· Oct 25, 2026 · 1d ago
San Francisco, California, United States
In office
Full-time
C-Level
$205K–$260K
Job description
Chief Product Architect - Cognitive Intelligence Spine Platform
COGNIZANT — AN AI BUILDER
Cognizant (Nasdaq: CTSH) is one of the world's leading professional services companies, and we are an AI Builder. We bridge the gap between AI investment and enterprise value by building full-stack, enterprise-grade AI solutions that cut through complexity, reduce risk, and translate AI potential into measurable business outcomes. Our deep industry, process, and engineering expertise enables us to embed an organization's unique context into technology systems that amplify human potential, drive tangible outcomes, and keep global enterprises ahead in a fast-changing world. From reimagining processes and business models to creating and running the systems that bring them to life, Cognizant is not an AI advisor; we are an AI builder. We design, build, deploy, and operate the AI systems that define the next era of enterprise performance.
COGNIZANT GLOBAL PHYSICAL AI
The Cognizant Global Physical AI organization sits at the frontier of the most consequential technology shift of our era. Physical AI brings advanced multimodal intelligence, including vision, sensing, positioning, and low-latency communication, into the operating layers of a business, allowing enterprises to direct physical action with greater visibility, safety, and control. After two decades in which industrialization centered on software, autonomous systems are now expanding into factories, warehouses, energy grids, logistics networks, and critical infrastructure. This is, in the words of Cognizant's CEO, the iPhone moment for robotics and Physical AI. The Global Physical AI organization is Cognizant's center of gravity for this transformation, unifying engineering, AI, and deep industry expertise across eight core verticals: Utilities, Oil and Gas, Manufacturing, Logistics, Transportation, Aerospace and Defense, Healthcare and Life Sciences, and Consumer and Retail. Our mandate is not to run pilots. Our mandate is to build governed, scalable Physical AI systems into the operational cores of the world's leading enterprises, and to do it at production scale.
THE COGNIZANT INTELLIGENCE SPINE
The Cognizant Intelligence Spine (CIS) is the architectural foundation of Cognizant's Physical AI platform. It is an industry-leading sovereign institutional AI Platform-as-a-Service that sits between the physical edge, encompassing sensors, cameras, robots, AI twins, and NVIDIA embedded systems, and the agentic reasoning layer that observes, reasons, and acts. The CIS connects disparate physical systems into a single coherent intelligence fabric, giving enterprises a unified institutional mind they own, govern, and expand over time. What makes the CIS categorically different from point AI solutions is its sovereign architecture: every model inference, every sensor event, and every agentic decision is governed by the client's rules, retained in the client's institutional knowledge base, and deepened with every deployment. The CIS is built on Microsoft Azure PaaS, including Azure AI Foundry, Microsoft Fabric, Cosmos DB, Azure IoT Hub, and Azure API Management, and extends to NVIDIA embedded environments including Jetson Orin and AGX Orin for real-time edge inference. It is the platform on which Cognizant's MLEU practice delivers Institutional Enterprise AI Autonomy to clients across energy utilities, industrial manufacturers, and logistics operators in North America and globally.
THE ROLE
This is a rare and consequential leadership opportunity. As Senior Director for the Cognitive Intelligence Spine Platform, you will own the product, the architecture, and the client narrative for CIS, Cognizant's flagship sovereign Physical AI platform. You will operate at the intersection of deep technical credibility, executive client engagement, and product strategy, serving as the primary face of CIS to C-suite buyers and as the architectural authority for the platform team. You will lead a globally distributed team of senior architects and infrastructure engineers across the United States and India, and you will be directly accountable for the evolution of CIS from its current production deployments into a scaled, multi-vertical enterprise platform. This role reports into the Global Head of Physical AI and is a cornerstone of Cognizant's MLEU growth strategy.
WHAT YOU WILL DO
As the platform owner, you will define and drive the CIS product roadmap in alignment with Cognizant's Physical AI strategy, translating client engagement learnings and market signals into architectural decisions and engineering priorities.
You will lead pre-sales and executive engagement for CIS opportunities, presenting the platform's sovereign AI architecture and value proposition to CIOs, CTOs, and Chief AI Officers at Fortune 500 enterprises.
You will architect and govern the end-to-end CIS technical design, spanning Azure PaaS, NVIDIA embedded edge, agentic AI orchestration, and sovereign data governance, ensuring the platform maintains its differentiated position as the only enterprise-owned, governed, and compounding institutional AI fabric in the market.
You will build and mentor the Global Physical AI platform team, establishing engineering standards, architectural review processes, and a culture of technical excellence.
You will partner with Cognizant's Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Azure AI Foundry alliance teams to co-develop joint go-to-market capabilities and ensure CIS remains at the leading edge of the Azure and NVIDIA ecosystem.
You will manage client relationships through the full engagement lifecycle, from initial briefing and architecture workshop through deployment, expansion, and executive business review.
WHAT YOU BRING
You bring fifteen or more years of experience in enterprise technology, with at least five years in a senior architecture or product leadership role at a consulting firm, systems integrator, or enterprise software company.
You have deep, hands-on expertise in Microsoft Azure PaaS, specifically Azure AI Foundry, Microsoft Fabric, Cosmos DB, Azure IoT Hub, Azure API Management, and Azure OpenAI Service, and you can speak to architectural trade-offs at the level of a principal engineer.
You have direct experience with NVIDIA embedded AI platforms, including Jetson Orin or AGX Orin, and understand the architectural requirements for deploying real-time inference workloads at the industrial edge.
You have led client-facing engagements at the C-suite level and can translate complex AI architecture into compelling business narratives that drive executive buy-in.
You have product management experience; you understand how to build a platform roadmap, manage competing stakeholder priorities, and make disciplined trade-off decisions under resource constraints.
You have consulting experience at a Tier 1 firm or equivalent, with a track record of building and scaling AI practices or platform businesses.
TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
Domain
Required Expertise
Azure PaaS
Azure AI Foundry, Microsoft Fabric, Cosmos DB, Azure IoT Hub, Azure API Management, Azure OpenAI Service, AKS
NVIDIA Embedded
Jetson Orin NX, AGX Orin, CUDA, TensorRT, DeepStream, edge inference pipelines
Agentic AI
LLM orchestration (LangChain, LlamaIndex, or equivalent), multi-agent frameworks, RAG architectures
Sovereign AI
Data governance, model governance, institutional knowledge base design, sovereign cloud deployment
Platform Architecture
Microservices, event-driven architecture, API-first design, real-time data pipelines
Cloud Infrastructure
Terraform/Bicep IaC, AKS, Azure DevOps, CI/CD pipelines
Client Engagement
Executive presentations, architecture workshops, pre-sales, RFP/RFI response
Product Management
Roadmap development, OKR frameworks, stakeholder management, agile delivery
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
Experience with Sovereign AI Factory deployments, including on-premises Azure Stack or air-gapped sovereign cloud environments, is strongly preferred. Prior experience leading a product practice at a global systems integrator or technology consulting firm is highly valued. Familiarity with industrial AI standards, including ISA-95, IEC 62443, or equivalent operational technology frameworks, is a plus. An advanced degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field is preferred.
Salary and other Compensation
The annual salary for this position is between $250,000 - $325,000 depending on the experience and other qualifications of the successful candidate. This position is also eligible for Cognizant’s discretionary annual incentive program and stock awards, 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, based on applicable law.
Additional employment information
Compensation 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.
Applicants may be required to attend interviews in person or by video conference. In addition, candidates may be required to present their current state or government issued ID during each interview.
Cognizant is an equal opportunity employer. Your application and candidacy will not be considered based on race, color, sex, religion, creed, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, genetic information, pregnancy, veteran status or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.
Applicants for US based positions must be currently authorized to work for any employer in the United States. The company is unable to provide employment-based immigration sponsorship for US based positions.
If you have a disability that requires reasonable accommodation to search for a job opening or submit an application, please email CareersNA2@cognizant.com for roles based in the Americas or CareersIndia2@cognizant.com for roles based in India.
About Cognizant:
Cognizant (Nasdaq: CTSH) is an AI Builder and technology services provider, bridging the gap between AI investment and enterprise value by building full-stack AI solutions for our clients. Our deep industry, process and engineering expertise enables us to build an organization’s unique context into technology systems that amplify human potential, drive tangible outcomes and keep global enterprises ahead in a fast-changing world. See how at cognizant.ai or @cognizant.
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Benefits
Benefits detected in the listing.
Dental
Vision
401(K)
Paid Time Off
Parental Leave