AI Customer Engineer

AI - Artificial Intelligence Customer Engineer Location: US Function AI Sales Engineering / AI Business & Design About the Role We are looking for a highly skilled and consultative AI Customer Engineer to help clients understand, shape, and activate the potential of AI in their business. This role partners closely with sales, industry specialists, engineering, and clients to turn priority AI use cases into MVPs, POCs, and commercially strong solutions that accelerate deal conversion. You will sit at the intersection of AI technology, solution architecture, and business value, guiding clients from early‑stage ideation through to validated solution designs. This is a hands‑on, high‑impact role suited for a technical expert who thrives in ambiguous, fast‑moving sales cycles. In This Role You Will Drive early‑stage discovery sessions with clients and account teams. Identify pain points, value levers, and high‑impact AI opportunities. Build “North Star” AI scenarios that illustrate meaningful business transformation. Translate vague or complex client questions into clear solution hypotheses and initial architectural logic. Design AI solutions by putting together the main components (LLMs, data sources, integrations) under guidance from senior engineers. Build prototypes, storyboards, demos, accelerators and reusable agentic blueprints. Engineer & validate AI agents for reliability, reasoning, safety, and performance. Lead POCs, pilots, and phase‑0 MVPs across industries. Create compelling, client‑ready content: SoWs, proposals, architecture decks, value frameworks, and demo storylines. Lead technical walkthroughs, deep‑dives, and competitive differentiation discussions. Refine solution narratives based on client feedback and market conditions. Oversee seamless transition from sales to delivery, ensuring continuity and clarity. Work Model We believe hybrid work is the way forward. This is a hybrid position in New Jersey requiring 3‑4 days a week in a client or Cognizant office. Regardless of your working arrangement, we support a healthy work‑life balance through our wellbeing programs. What You Need To Be Considered Hands‑on experience building AI Agents with tools such as Google ADK, CoPilot Studio, CrewAI, or Autogen. Hands‑on working knowledge in defining and configuring prompts, instructions, tools, reasoning, guardrails and other concepts in AI Agent development. Strong experience with RAG pipelines, Vector DBs, tokenization, and prompt engineering. Hands‑on experience creating and maintaining Python libraries; utilizing LangChain, Hugging Face, OpenAI API or local models. Very strong experience developing RESTful APIs in Python using FastAPI and integrating third‑party services, UI components and APIs. Hands‑on experience with Docker‑based deployments, and leveraging GitHub for code repo and version control. Ownership of end‑to‑end architecture: LLM selection, context engineering, microservices, integrations, and UI. Build prototypes, storyboards, demos, accelerators, and reusable agentic blueprints. Engineer & validate AI agents for reliability, reasoning, safety and performance. Lead POCs, pilots, and phase‑0 MVPs across industries. Create thought leadership, reusable assets, and mentor engineering teams. Collaborate with hyper‑scalers and product partners to craft next‑generation AI‑led experiences. Strong communication and articulation skills. Bachelor’s Degree or Equivalent Experience. This Will Help You Stand Out MS or MBA degree. Demonstrated ability to turn ambiguous business problems into crisp AI use cases, with clear value hypotheses and measurable outcomes. Hands‑on prototyping mindset – able to quickly build functional demos, agent workflows, or LLM‑powered interactions that accelerate client conviction. Track record collaborating with hyperscalers, LLM providers, or ISVs in co‑sell or co‑build motions. Salary And Other Compensation The annual salary for this position is between $140,000‑$200,000 depending on experience and other qualifications of the successful candidate. Benefits 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 include: 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 Work Authorization Must be legally authorized to work in the United States without the need for employer sponsorship, now or any time in the future. #J-18808-Ljbffr Cognizant