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Introduction
Hello Ninja! Are you keen to work as an Associate at Cognizant? If your answer was yes, then you are at the right place, and this article is for you. Many people who choose IT as their career aim to get a job at Cognizant. And why wouldn’t they? Cognizant is one of the leading service-based companies in the world.
As you go through this article, you will learn all that you need to know about the role of an Associate at Cognizant. We will also talk about how to become an Associate at Cognizant. Along with that, you will get to know about the perks, salary, and much more about the job. And as a bonus, we will share ample resources with you that are useful for your preparation. So, let us start.
About Cognizant
Cognizant is a US-based multinational company. It is a service-based company that provides IT services and consulting. Cognizant is among the fastest-growing companies in the world. It was founded in 1994 and grew rapidly in the 2000s. It is a member of the S&P 500, the NASDAQ-100, and the Forbes Global 2000. It is among the Fortune 500 companies and is ranked at 185th position (as of 2021). It is also one of the world's most admired companies.
Its distinct industry-based consultative approach is something that clients seek. It assists them to picture, build, and operate more innovative and efficient businesses. They offer many roles to candidates. Here, we will focus on the job of an Associate at Cognizant.
Now that you know the company, let us know about the role of an Associate.
About the Role
Associate-Projects is a general post used at Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp (CTS) across all verticals and horizontals. For differentiating between domains, Cognizant uses horizontal and vertical. Horizontal refers to the technology (testing, development, etc.) that you will be working with. The field in which you work is vertical (Healthcare, Insurance, etc.)
“Associate” is a designation. Your role will vary based on your skills and the project on which you work.
Let's talk about the pay and perks you can expect as an Associate at cognizant.
Salary and Perks
In this section, we will cover the salary offered by Cognizant and the perks covered by the company.
Average Salary
The table that follows shows the salary that an Associate at Cognizant gets:
Designation
Avg. Salary (per annum)
Estimated Take Home Salary (per month)
Associate-Projects
₹ 7,86,724
₹ 58,146 - ₹ 59,611
*The salaries that are mentioned here are estimated. This may vary according to the company.
Benefits of Working at Cognizant
There are many perks offered by the company to its employees. These perks depend on your position. Some of the perks that an Associate gets are listed below:
➡️ Free training and learning programs
➡️ Health Insurance
➡️ Life Insurance
➡️ Dental Insurance
➡️ Vision Insurance
➡️ Temporary Disability Insurance
➡️ Prepaid Legal
➡️ Long-term Disability Insurance
➡️ Accidental Death & Dismemberment Insurance
**Benefits offered by the company are based on your position and work efficiency.
Now that we know about the pay and perks offered by the company. Let's take a look at the skills and experience that you need to have in order to get this job.
Required Skills and Experience
Eligibility
The eligibility criteria are simple. You need to have any of the degrees that follow with the required experience:
➡️ B.Sc with more than two years of experience post-graduation.
➡️ B.Tech or equivalent with more than two years of experience post-graduation.
Required Experience
To become an Associate at Cognizant, you must have at least two years of experience.
Required Skills
The knowledge or talent required to perform a job or task is referred to as a skill. The skills that you need to have to become an Associate are:
The tasks that an Associate is expected to do are as follows:
Requirement Analysis
It is the process of finding out the demands and expectations of a new product. An Associate at Cognizant is required to do the following to analyze the requirements of a project:
Understand the application and technologies involved in the application.
Collect non-functional requirements (like throughput numbers, response time, user load, etc.) by discussing with SMEs and business users.
Analyze application or production logs to understand usage patterns.
Identify the scenarios that are necessary for the business’ success and derive a workload model for it.
Share inputs from project planning with the test lead (long-term projects).
Review requirements and provide inputs on proposals with the test lead (short-term projects).
Take part in Knowledge Transfer (KT) calls to understand requirements.
Design and Development
An Associate should consider all potential risks and roadblocks. They will need to be overcome in order to bring the product to market. For that, he needs to:
Review test plans made by the test analyst.
Recommend tests that need to be conducted, the environment that needs to be used, etc.
Identify tools that are to be used.
Develop a proof of concept for a specific scenario (if needed) and seek approval from the architect.
Suggest optimized approaches to developers.
Conduct code profiling to identify and troubleshoot bottlenecks.
Knowledge Sharing
As an experienced employee, an Associate is supposed to share his knowledge, skills, and experience with other employees. It is known as knowledge sharing. For this, he is required to do the tasks stated below:
Conduct sessions to share knowledge about new technologies with other teams.
Create case studies for completed projects.
Provide inputs on the tech that can be used for development.
Conduct Knowledge Transfer sessions for new members of the team.
Provide support to maintain the company’s official website.
Contribute to knowledge tools and repositories.
Attend self-training sessions to maintain high communication and business standards.
Coding
An Associate needs to be skilled in programming in order to develop quality code, as he is required to do the tasks that follow:
Develop quality code according to the requirements.
Seek periodic reviews from the senior developers.
Rework the code based on code reviews and defects raised in the testing phases.
Participate in code peer reviews according to the needs.
Highlight potential problems to the lead and seek their input to resolve the found issues.
Support component integration according to given requirements.
Follow the supply chain management policies for projects.
Update the traceability matrix for the developed project.
Design and Architecture
The Associate is also responsible for the design and architecture of projects. He is supposed to do the following:
Study the functional specifications that are assigned.
Analyze the specifications to identify their impacts.
Provide the needed support for the development of proof of concept.
Preparation Strategy
To get a job as an Associate at Cognizant, you can follow these steps:
Become skilled in programming.
Improve your communication skills.
Gain relevant experience.
Learn data security and big data tools.
Develop project management skills.
Create a portfolio. Work on projects and add them to your portfolio.
Apply for the role of Associate at the Official Site of Cognizant. You can also choose your preferred location.
Career Map
You will get placed at Cognizant at one of the following job levels, depending on your skill and experience. You can get promoted to higher levels based on the number of projects that you have done and your performance.
The basic Hierarchy at Cognizant is as follows:
You will start as a Programmer Analyst Trainee. As a trainee, you will have to work for one year. After a year, you will become a programmer analyst (PA). After two years of working as a PA, you will become an Associate. After becoming an Associate, you will need to work for about 7-9 years to gain more experience. Once you have enough experience, you will be promoted to senior Associate. Later, you will be promoted to junior manager and then to senior manager. If you sustain all these, you will become an Associate director. After many years, you will be promoted to the director position. A director will become the assistant vice president (AVP) for a specific domain or product. After some time working as an AVP, you will become a VP (Vice President). The VP reports to the CEO.
Resources
We've gone over the job of an Associate in great detail up to this point. Now, let's talk about how to prepare for it. Preparation is the key to getting your dream job. To give your preparation a kickstart, we’ll provide you with ample useful resources. Let’s take a look.
For DSA, you can refer to these articles by Coding Ninjas.
You can start practicing problems asked in Cognizant interview by checking out most asked Cognizant Coding Interview Questions in our Problem Lists section.
At last, we would like to suggest you to watch the below-mentioned video to understand ‘How Long Does It Take To Learn Coding And Programming | How To Begin Coding | DSA’.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happens after I submit my resume to Cognizant?
After you submit your resume, their reviewing team reviews it. If your resume gets shortlisted, they will contact you for further processes.
Can I apply for multiple positions at the same time at Cognizant?
Yes, you can apply for many positions at the same time. You should apply to all the open positions that interest you and match your qualifications.
Does Cognizant conduct background checks on employees?
Yes, Cognizant does an in-depth background check on all new hires. It is done to confirm their educational credentials, previous employment details, and references.
Does Cognizant provide employment sponsorships to its employees?
They may or may not provide employment sponsorship. It depends on your role.
How do I write a good cover letter for Cognizant?
Cognizant is dedicated to tech innovation for businesses. It will be beneficial for you to learn about its products and services. You can mention how your skills and experience align with the company’s work.
Conclusion
In this article, we have discussed the role of an Associate at Cognizant. We have also talked about how you can become an Associate at Cognizant. We got to know about the perks, work, and much more, along with the career map at Cognizant.
You can find and learn about more jobs at Cognizant at Coding Ninjas. For more info, see the following articles: