Frontier Transformation Lead

Leading at Cognizant

This is a Leadership role at Cognizant. We believe how you lead is as important as what you deliver. Cognizant leaders at every level: Drive our business strategy and inspire teams around our future. Live the leadership behaviors, leading themselves, others and the business. Uphold our Values, role modeling them in every action and decision. Nurture our people and culture, creating a workplace where all can thrive.

At Cognizant, leadership transcends titles and is embodied in actions and behaviors. We empower our leaders at every level to drive business strategy, inspire teams, uphold our values, and foster an inclusive culture.

About the role

As a Frontier Transformation Lead, you will make an impact by building the reusable intellectual capital of the Frontier Capability Unit (FCU) - the offerings, methodologies, accelerators, tools and assets that give SEG's AI-native engagement model its edge - and taking that capital to market and into client delivery. You will be a valued member of the Frontier Capability Unit team and work collaboratively with SEG Solutioning, GSA, the IDU and Frontier Talent community, hyperscaler and model partners, industry analysts, and clients.

In this role, you will:

· Own the offering and accelerator roadmap across Agentic Coding & ADLC, Autonomous Agents & Runtime and Vertical Solutions, including domain and hyperscaler-specific offerings, and sponsor the Garage / R&D build of new assets and proof points ahead of client demand.

· Build and maintain delivery kits, composable tooling (MCP & Skills), delivery methodology and pod-design patterns consumed by the IDU and the Frontier Talent community, owning their availability and quality.

· Own the asset / IP register for the unit and the Enterprise Runtime & Governance standard that assets must meet before they are published for re-use.

· Supply estimation models, productivity guidance and Assurance & Evaluation proof points into new and vendor-consolidation deals, and co-create bid support with SEG Solutioning / GSA.

· Own hyperscaler, model-partner (Anthropic, Google / Gemini, OpenAI) and Agentic Trust & Security ecosystem relationships and represent the FCU's capability to industry analysts.

· Consistently demonstrate the Cognizant Way to Lead, which means operating with Personal Leadership (building trust, collaboration, and inclusion), Organizational Leadership (driving vision and purpose, demonstrating a strategic and enterprise mindset, and creating and communicating a bold direction that inspires purpose), and Business Leadership (exemplifying client focus, managing ambiguity with accountability and results, and operating with financial acumen)

What you need to have to be considered

· 20+ years in IT services, with 10+ years in AI-native / GenAI engineering, solutioning or offering & IP leadership.

· Strong technical / solutioning grounding in AI-native and GenAI engineering, credible enough to set an offering roadmap and engage architects and partners.

· A proven track record of taking IP to market through pre-sales support, accelerator build, and analyst / partner engagement.

· Experience building estimation and proof-point models for bids and connecting offerings to commercial outcomes such as TCV and pricing-to-win.

· A builder-evangelist profile with market-facing scope, able to lead a direct and indirect span of 20-30 across pillar-aligned focus areas.

· Embodiment of the Cognizant Way to Lead: Leading Self, Leading Others, & Leading the Business

· The embodiment of Cognizant’s Values of: Work as One, Dare to Innovate, Raise the Bar, Do The right Thing, & Own It

These will help you succeed

· Working knowledge of major model and cloud ecosystems - OpenAI, Anthropic, Google / Gemini, Azure, AWS and GCP.

· Ability to evaluate emerging technologies and determine enterprise readiness.

· Experience designing reference architectures, engineering standards and delivery patterns.

· Strong market-sensing skills that convert frontier technology trends into a forward offering roadmap.

· Experience industrialising reusable offerings, accelerators and methodologies that differentiate at scale.

Work model

At Cognizant, we strive to provide flexibility wherever possible, and we are here to support a healthy work-life balance through our various wellbeing programs. Based on this role's business requirements, this is an onsite position requiring 3 days a week in a client or Cognizant office.

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.

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.