Senior Solutions Architect (Microservices & Event-Driven Platforms)

About the role
As a Senior Solutions Architect (Microservices & Event-Driven Platforms), you will make an impact by driving architecture governance, engineering standards, and large-scale platform transitions across distributed systems. You will be a valued member of the engineering leadership team and work collaboratively with client stakeholders, delivery teams, and cross-functional engineering groups.

In this role, you will:

• Govern microservices architecture including service boundaries, API contracts, and resilience patterns using Spring Boot
• Lead event-driven architecture design including Kafka topic strategy, Schema Registry governance, and DLQ handling
• Define and enforce data architecture standards across MongoDB (schema design, indexing, scalability, consistency)
• Drive CI/CD and DevOps practices including GitHub Actions pipeline design, promotion gates, and secrets management
• Establish engineering standards for Python automation and operational tooling across the platform
• Oversee capacity and delivery governance, including velocity tracking, architectural debt, and SLA/KPI adherence
• Lead application transition strategy, ensuring successful execution of multi-phase handovers across application streams
• Act as a technical liaison with client stakeholders, supporting architecture decisions, vendor transitions, and rebadging 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 3–4 days a week in a Cognizant or client office in Atlanta, Georgia. 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.

What you need to have to be considered

• 15+ years of overall IT experience, with a minimum of 5+ years in architecture or technical leadership roles
• Strong experience in Java and Spring Boot (Spring Cloud, Security, REST APIs)
• Hands-on expertise in Apache Kafka (Streams, Schema Registry, producers/consumers)
• Proven experience with MongoDB (schema design, aggregation, replica sets, sharding)
• Experience designing and managing CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions (multi-service pipelines, gates, secrets)
• Proficiency in Python for automation, integration tooling, and data pipelines
• Strong experience with distributed systems architecture (observability, service mesh, fault tolerance)
• Demonstrated experience in transition and delivery governance, including SLA/KPI ownership and phased handovers
• Experience with build and containerization tools (Maven/Gradle, SonarQube, Docker, Kubernetes)
• Excellent stakeholder management skills, with the ability to interact directly with clients and cross-functional teams

These will help you stand out

• Experience defining enterprise-wide architecture governance frameworks
• Exposure to large-scale platform modernization or transformation programs
• Strong background in DevOps culture adoption and automation-first practices
• Experience working in vendor transition or rebadging environments
• Ability to influence engineering best practices across multiple teams and portfolios

Salary and Other Compensation:

The annual salary for this position depends 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.