Vertex AI Engineer

Senior Vertex AI / MLOps Engineer (GCP, Python, Terraform)

• Job Title: Senior Vertex AI Engineer
• Location: Houston, TX
• Client: Cognizant / NRG Energy

Job Summary

We are seeking an experienced
Senior Vertex AI Engineer
with
7+ years of experience
to lead the design, development, and deployment of large-scale Machine Learning and AI solutions exclusively on
Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
. The role requires deep technical expertise in
Vertex AI
,
MLOps
, and end-to-end ML lifecycle automation. The engineer will own the solution architecture, provide hands-on implementation, and mentor junior engineers, focusing on operationalizing AI/ML initiatives using core GCP services.

Key Responsibilities

• MLOps Architecture: Architect and optimize MLOps pipelines for model training, validation, deployment, and monitoring.
• Vertex AI Development: Lead the development and deployment of scalable ML models using Vertex AI (Pipelines, Training Jobs, Feature Store, Model Registry, and Monitoring).
• GCP Integration: Integrate core GCP components suchs as BigQuery, Dataflow, Cloud Run, Pub/Sub, and Cloud Functions .
• Technical Leadership: Lead troubleshooting, performance optimization, and provide architectural guidance while mentoring team members.
• Governance: Implement best practices in versioning, CI/CD, and governance for ML workflows.

Required Skills & Experience

1. Vertex AI & GCP (3+ years hands-on): Practical experience with Vertex AI Pipelines, Training Jobs, Feature Store, and Model Monitoring .
2. ML Development: Proven expertise in Python with libraries like TensorFlow, PyTorch, or Scikit-Learn .
3. MLOps & DevOps: Strong understanding of MLOps, CI/CD, Docker/Kubernetes , and IaC tools ( Terraform preferred ).
4. Integration: Experience integrating ML APIs and REST endpoints into business applications.
5. Certification: Google Cloud ML Engineer or Architect certification highly preferred .

Nice to Have

• Exposure to Generative AI / LLM integration using Vertex AI or PaLM API.
• Experience working with data governance, model explainability, and bias detection tools.