AI Strategist - Senior Director

About the Position

AI Strategist - Senior Director

Location: Seattle / United States

Work model: Hybrid

Date published: Jul 13 2026

Job category: Sales and Marketing

The AI Strategist plays a pivotal role in shaping Cognizant’s AI portfolio by designing high impact AI use cases, building compelling value propositions, and enabling early-stage client engagement. Sitting at the intersection of business design, AI capability, and industry needs, this role transforms opportunity spaces into structured, scalable, commercially strong AI offerings that drive growth for the AI Market Unit. This role is ideal for a product-minded consultant or solution designer who can blend conceptual thinking, business acumen, and AI literacy to build differentiated offerings that win in the market.

Responsibilities

AI Offering & Use Case Design

• Own conceptual and architectural design for prioritized AI use cases and offerings.
• Translate business problems, industry signals, and AI capabilities into structured solution blueprints.
• Develop narratives, workflows, and design artifacts that illustrate the “art of the possible” and competitive differentiation.

Value Proposition Development & Collateral Creation

• Build business value frameworks, impact models, and client-ready point of view documents.
• Create reusable offering assets including pitch decks, one-pagers, POVs, demo scripts, and solution differentiators.
• Align offerings with market demand, competitive insights, and Cognizant’s internal capability landscape.

Client & Internal Engagement

• Partner with clients, sales teams, ISLs, consulting, and pre-sales in early discovery phases.
• Lead ideation sessions and offer walkthroughs to surface use cases and refine solution approaches.
• Support pursuit teams with value narratives, offering insights, and strategic justification for AI-led transformation programs.

Requirements

Experience Required

• Min 15 years of consulting, solution design, digital/AI strategy, or product/experience design.
• Proven experience framing business problems and structuring AI or digital solutions.
• Exposure to AI platforms, GenAI toolchains, and industry specific AI use cases.
• Strong commercial acumen and ability to tie technology to business value.
• Demonstrated stakeholder management and cross functional collaboration.

Key Competencies

• Strong conceptual and structured problem-solving skills.
• Ability to blueprint solutions and articulate complex ideas simply.
• Business storytelling and narrative building for executive audiences.
• Ability to work seamlessly with sales, engineering, consulting, and product teams.
• Understanding of AI/ML concepts at a business technical level (not necessarily hands on technical).

Nice to Have

• N/A

We Offer

• The chance to work with impact. Here, you’re empowered to bring your biggest thinking to help our company and clients improve everyday life.
• Ownership over your career. Stay at the top of your game through our award-winning learning and development ecosystem. And when your ambitions change or we offer new opportunities, we help you pivot by providing reskilling, on-the-job learning and guidance to find new roles that might be a better fit.
• The opportunity to thrive on a high caliber team with heart. We celebrate each other’s experiences and perspectives and promote a sense of belonging through our affinity groups and diversity and inclusion initiatives.
• A comprehensive total rewards package, including a competitive salary and a pension plan with matching contributions.
• Flexible health and financial benefits to support you and your eligible dependents-from day one.
• True work-life balance. Be at your best through paid time off, flexible work arrangements, volunteering opportunities, social events, and so much more.

Salary and Other Compensation

Applications will be accepted until Aug 30, 2026.

The annual base salary for this position is between $200,000 - $275,000 depending on the experience and other qualifications of the successful candidate.

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

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.

About the Company

Cognizant (Nasdaq: CTSH) is an AI Builder and technology services provider, building the bridge between AI investment and enterprise value by building full-stack AI solutions for our clients. Our deep industry, process and engineering expertise enables us to build an organization’s unique context into technology systems that amplify human potential, realize tangible returns and keep global enterprises ahead in a fast-changing world. See how at www.cognizant.com or @cognizant.

Other employment-related information

Cognizant is an equal opportunity employer. Your application and candidacy will not be considered based on race, color, sex, religion, creed, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, genetic information, pregnancy, veteran status or any other characteristic protected by federal, provincial or local laws.

If you have a disability that requires reasonable accommodation to search for a job opening or submit an application, please email [email protected] with your request and contact information.

Language requirements vary depending on roles, but we ask that all candidates have basic English proficiency for company-wide communications purposes. For roles based in Quebec, professional English proficiency is required, as you’ll deliver services to and collaborate with stakeholders outside the province who may not speak French.