AI Platform Engineer

Compass Group Canada; Toronto; On-site; CAD 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading hospitality technology firm in Canada seeks an experienced AI Platform Engineer. In this role, you'll develop robust backend systems for AI-driven products, collaborate with cross-functional teams, and design data infrastructures. Ideal candidates will have a strong background in software engineering, proficiency in Python and SQL, and experience with cloud environments and containerization. The company promotes diversity and welcomes all qualified applicants.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in software engineering with strong backend expertise.
• Comfort working in cloud-native environments like AWS, GCP, or Azure.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain robust backend services and APIs for AI features.
• Design infrastructure and data flows for system observability.
• Collaborate with AI engineers to integrate AI systems into applications.

Skills

Backend expertise

Proficiency in Python

Experience with SQL

Familiarity with FastAPI

Collaboration skills

Education

Bachelor's or Master’s degree in a STEM field

Tools

Snowflake

PostgreSQL

Docker

Kubernetes

MLflow

Job description

We are CDAI—the data and artificial intelligence engine of Compass Group North America. We design and deliver custom, in-house solutions tailored to the unique complexities of food service and hospitality. Our work is grounded in strong data foundations, layered with AI to enhance forecasting, streamline operations, and enable better, faster decision‑making across Compass Group. With deep integration into the business and a commitment to white‑glove service, CDAI empowers associates, clients, and customers through innovative, future‑forward technologies.

We’re looking for an AI Platform Engineer with strong backend engineering skills and a passion for building systems that support AI‑driven products. In this role, you’ll help design and maintain a robust, scalable foundation that connects backend services with AI systems, while also contributing to tools and workflows that empower our AI engineers. This position sits at the intersection of AI/ML engineering, data infrastructure, and platform development. You’ll collaborate closely with AI engineers, data scientists, and product teams to ensure backend services are reliable, performant, and aligned with product goals. At the same time, you’ll help shape internal tooling, development environments, and best practices to support technical workflows.

Job Summary

If you were to come on board as our AI Platform Engineer, we’d ask you to do the following:

• Build and maintain robust backend services and APIs to support AI features and data applications (e.g., using FastAPI, SQLAlchemy, Snowflake)
• Design infrastructure and data flows to support inference, experimentation, feature engineering, and system observability.
• Maintain production‑grade reliability, security, scalability, and monitoring for AI systems and services.
• Collaborate with AI engineers and data scientists to productionize models and integrate AI and ML systems into user‑facing applications.
• Support deployment, versioning, and maintenance of APIs, shared libraries, and tooling.
• Contribute to CI/CD pipelines, platform automation, and developer environments to improve team velocity.
• Partner with Product Managers, AI Engineers and Data Scientists to prioritize and deliver high‑impact work.

Think you have what it takes?

• Bachelor's or Master’s degree in a STEM field (or equivalent experience).
• 5+ years of experience in software engineering, with strong backend expertise.
• Proficiency in Python, SQL, and backend frameworks (e.g., FastAPI, Flask, or similar).
• Experience working with databases and data warehouses (e.g., Snowflake, PostgreSQL), and related ORMs or query frameworks (SQLAlchemy)
• Familiarity with ML pipelines, model serving, and data‑intensive applications.
• Comfort working in cloud‑native environments (e.g., AWS, GCP, Azure) and with containerization (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Exposure to MLOps tooling (e.g., MLflow, SageMaker, Vertex AI, BentoML)
• Strong communication and collaboration skills; able to work cross‑functionally with technical and non‑technical teams.
• Interest in AI observability, feature stores, or experiment tracking systems.

Compass Group Canada is committed to nurturing a diverse workforce representative of the communities within which we operate. We encourage and are pleased to consider all qualified candidates, without regard to race, colour, citizenship, religion, sex, marital / family status, sexual orientation, gender identity, aboriginal status, age, disability or persons who may require an accommodation, to apply.

For accommodation requests during the hiring process, please contact [e-mail] for further information.