AI Engineer

Cognizant Romania is home to 2400+ creative technologists and is one of Eastern Europe's largest Software Product Engineering delivery networks. We serve global clients in several industries, including Banking & Financial Services, Insurance, Healthcare & Life Sciences, Communication Media & Technology, and Retail & MLEU (manufacturing, logistics, energy & utilities).

Cognizant Romania was established in 2018 when Cognizant acquired Softvision, a company founded in the late 1990s in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. We continue to build on our history as the preferred engineering partner for thriving Silicon Valley tech companies, now as a prominent Cognizant next generation studio.

We’re looking for a Senior AI Engineer to build and scale applied AI solutions, with a strong emphasis on LLMs, RAG, and agentic systems, to join our team in Bucharest. You’ll combine deep software engineering skills with modern AI techniques to take ideas from prototype to production, partnering closely with product, data, and platform teams to deliver measurable business outcomes.

In this role, you will own key technical decisions, write production-grade code, and set engineering standards for AI features—from prompt/tool design and evaluation through to deployment, monitoring, and continuous improvement. You’ll thrive in a collaborative, agile environment and enjoy solving ambiguous problems with pragmatic, scalable solutions.

Key Responsibilities

• Build agentic AI features: Design and implement agentic workflows, tool use, and (where needed) multi-agent/A2A patterns.
• Develop LLM applications: Deliver production LLM solutions (e.g., RAG, structured outputs, function/tool calling) with clear evaluation criteria.
• Productionise end-to-end: Package models into APIs/services, integrate with products, and ensure reliability, performance, and security.
• Quality & evaluation: Define test strategies and automated evaluations for LLM/agent behaviour; drive regression, safety, and robustness improvements.
• Operate & improve: Monitor in-production behaviour (latency, cost, drift), iterate quickly, and manage the model/prompt lifecycle.
• Engineering excellence: Write clean, maintainable code; contribute to code reviews, standards, and CI/CD practices.
• Governance & documentation: Maintain documentation and controls aligned with the data governance and responsible AI expectations.
• Collaboration & delivery: Partner with data/platform teams and contribute to agile ceremonies to deliver against the roadmap.

Required Skills & Experience

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field
• 5+ years’ engineering experience, including 3+ years in AI/ML/Applied AI, with a proven track record of delivering production AI solutions that drive measurable business impact.
• Strong Python proficiency, including advanced language features, Object-Oriented Programming (SOLID principles), and efficient use of data structures & algorithms
• Hands-on experience with modern AI/ML frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, or JAX
• Hands-on experience building LLM-powered applications (e.g., RAG, tool/function calling, structured outputs), with practical understanding of agentic and/or multi-agent patterns
• Familiarity with agent/orchestration frameworks (e.g., ADK, Dialogflow, or similar) is a plus
• Experience with at least one major cloud platform: Google Cloud, AWS, or Azure
• GCP preferred (or equivalent cloud experience), with familiarity deploying services such as BigQuery and Cloud Run (or comparable managed data/compute services)
• Strong understanding of data fundamentals relevant to AI products (ingestion, data quality, preprocessing, feature creation, and query optimization)
• Proficiency with Git, CI/CD pipelines, and unit testing frameworks (e.g. PyTest, JUnit)
• Strong debugging and troubleshooting skills across data, model, and cloud layers
• Ability to perform code reviews and contribute to engineering standards
• Experience working in Agile environments and collaborating within global, cross-functional teams
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills, with the ability to explain complex AI concepts to non-technical stakeholders
• Awareness of responsible AI, governance, and ethical considerations in production systems

Cognizant Romania Employee Benefits:

• Flexible Work Schedule - Outside of main work hours, you can create a schedule that suits your needs
• Hybrid workplace - Whether you like to work from home or go to the office, the choice is yours
• Annual Vacation Days - 26 days to relax, explore and spend time with loved ones
• Trainings, workshops, and certifications, unlimited Udemy subscription and more
• Private medical package
• Meal tickets
• Referral bonuses
• Life insurance
• Banking services
• Bookster

Please note that only suitable candidates will be contacted and that by applying to this role you are being informed about your personal data being processed by Cognizant.

You can find more details here: https://www.cognizant.com/us/en/privacy-notice