Sr. Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) Lead

About The Role

As a Senior Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) Lead, you will make an impact by ensuring the stability, resiliency, and performance of mission-critical enterprise applications across hybrid cloud and on-premises environments. You will be a valued member of the Site Reliability Engineering team and work collaboratively with application development, infrastructure, security, operations, vendor partners, and global support teams to drive operational excellence and continuous reliability improvements.

• Please note that this position is not eligible for visa transfer or sponsorship now or at any time in the future*

In This Role, You Will

• Drive application reliability and availability across hybrid infrastructure environments, proactively identifying risks and implementing preventive measures before they impact business operations.
• Lead complex incident management efforts, rapidly diagnosing and resolving issues across application, middleware, database, network, and cloud technology stacks to minimize disruption and reduce recovery times.
• Assess production risk associated with infrastructure, operating system, security, middleware, and platform changes, ensuring safe and successful deployments.
• Conduct comprehensive root cause analyses, identifying underlying issues and driving long-term corrective actions that improve system stability and prevent recurrence.
• Build and enhance observability capabilities using Splunk and related monitoring tools to detect anomalies, correlate events, and accelerate issue resolution.
• Automate operational processes using Python, Shell scripting, and Ansible to improve efficiency, consistency, and operational resilience.
• Plan and execute resiliency and disaster recovery exercises to validate failover capabilities, recovery procedures, and operational readiness.
• Partner with cross-functional teams, stakeholders, and offshore support organizations to maintain service levels, manage escalations, and drive continuous improvement initiatives.

Work model

We believe hybrid work is the way forward as we strive to provide flexibility wherever possible. Based on this role’s business requirements, this is a hybrid position requiring associates to work from a client or Cognizant office in Bridgewater, NJ as determined by business needs. Regardless of your working arrangement, we are here to support a healthy work-life balance through our various wellbeing programs.

The working arrangements for this role are accurate as of the date of posting. This may change based on the project you're engaged in, as well as business and client requirements. Rest assured; we will always be clear about role expectations.

What You Need To Have To Be Considered

• 10+ years of experience in Site Reliability Engineering, production support, systems engineering, or application support for large-scale distributed enterprise environments.
• Strong expertise administering and troubleshooting Java-based application platforms, including WebSphere Application Server (WAS), Apache Tomcat, and related middleware technologies.
• Hands-on experience diagnosing JVM performance issues using heap dumps, thread dumps, garbage collection analysis, and memory tuning techniques.
• Proven experience supporting enterprise applications in AWS environments, including EC2, Application Load Balancers, networking, and security constructs.
• Strong understanding of networking concepts, including TCP/IP, SSL/TLS, load balancing, firewall interactions, and timeout management.
• Experience troubleshooting database connectivity and performance issues involving IBM DB2, Oracle, JDBC drivers, and connection pooling technologies.
• Proficiency with observability and monitoring platforms, particularly Splunk, for log analysis, event correlation, and root cause investigation.
• Strong automation and scripting skills using Python and Shell scripting, with experience implementing infrastructure automation and configuration management solutions such as Ansible.

These will help you stand out

• Experience supporting IBM HTTP Server (IHS), F5 BIG-IP LTM, AWS ALB, and enterprise traffic management solutions.
• Knowledge of IBM MQ, RabbitMQ, and other messaging and middleware technologies.
• Experience managing TLS/SSL certificates, trust stores, certificate renewals, and enterprise certificate authority migrations.
• Familiarity with Linux, AIX, Solaris, and Windows Server administration in enterprise environments.
• Experience with ServiceNow, SailPoint, application inventory tools, and enterprise change management processes.
• Demonstrated ability to lead major incident response efforts, coordinate cross-functional teams, and communicate effectively with business and technology stakeholders.

We're excited to meet people who share our mission and can make an impact in a variety of ways. Don't hesitate to apply, even if you only meet the minimum requirements listed. Think about your transferable experiences and unique skills that make you stand out as someone who can bring new and exciting things to this role.

Applications will be accepted until August 19th, 2026.

Salary and Other Compensation: The annual salary for this position is between $ 63,000 to $ 99,500 depending on experience and other qualifications of the successful candidate.

This position is also eligible for Cognizant’s discretionary annual incentive program, 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, subject to applicable law.