Director Data, AI, and Specialized Business

RiseMe; Toronto; On-site; CAD 180,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

RBC Caribbean Banking Technology seeks a Director to lead data, AI, KYC and specialized business applications across Toronto and the Caribbean. You will drive data foundation modernization, enable production AI engineering, and oversee vendor partnerships with a focus on regulatory compliance and risk management.

You will manage cross regional teams, foster technical excellence and deliver complex programs in an agile, DevOps environment.

Qualifications

• Proven leadership of data/AI engineering teams in large scale programs.
• Experience with banking domain data, regulatory constraints and risk management.
• Strong track record delivering multi-project portfolios on time and within budget.

Responsibilities

• Lead modernization of Caribbean data foundation, architecture and data products.
• Define AI solutions roadmap and build production ready AI platforms.
• Oversee KYC and Specialized Business Applications development and delivery.
• Mentor cross regional teams and manage vendor relationships.
• Ensure governance, security, and regulatory compliance across jurisdictions.

Skills

Data engineering

AI engineering

Leadership

Vendor management

Agile delivery

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science or related field

Tools

Databricks

Kafka

Spark

CI/CD

Job description

Job Description

What is the Opportunity?

This is an opportunity to lead the Data, AI, KYC and Specialized Business portfolio within RBC Caribbean Banking Technology, a team dedicated to delivering modern, resilient solutions for our Caribbean businesses and clients. We are all in on Agile delivery, DevOps, open source, cloud and modern engineering practices, and the work is highly visible: our applications are used daily by RBC staff and clients across the region.

Reporting to the Senior Director, the Director owns three connected mandates. First, the modernization of the Caribbean data foundation: evolving the data lake, data architecture and data products so that the business can trust and use its data. Second, AI engineering: building and operating production grade AI solutions for clients and colleagues, from generative and agentic AI to intelligent automation, with responsible AI and regulatory controls built in. Third, software development and delivery for KYC and Specialized Business Applications: leading the engineering team accountable for a portfolio of vendor applications and for active development of the KYC platform, and delivering the associated project portfolio on time and with quality.

The successful candidate combines hands on technical credibility in data and AI engineering with proven project delivery, vendor management and people leadership, and a clear understanding of the banking industry’s data, processes and regulatory obligations. They are comfortable navigating ambiguity and leading in a fast paced, rapidly evolving technology environment.

What Will You Do?

Data modernization and data foundation

• Own end to end delivery of data engineering and data product initiatives for the Caribbean, working closely with business and technology stakeholders to define scope, priorities and expectations.
• Lead the data modernization roadmap and architecture, retire legacy data flows, and establish the platform as the standard foundation for analytics, reporting, consolidation of siloed data, removal of duplicated data profiles, and AI solutions.
• Establish and enforce data governance practices (data dictionary, lineage, quality and access controls) that meet regulatory and audit expectations across Caribbean jurisdictions.
• Mature CI/CD and orchestration for data pipelines, with automated testing, monitoring and service level objectives for production data.
• Partner with business lines to define data products and self service capabilities that create measurable value.

AI engineering and AI solutions

• Define, communicate and execute the AI solutions roadmap for Caribbean applications, aligned to the business vision and to emerging AI capabilities (generative AI, agentic AI, large language models, intelligent process automation).
• Build and grow an AI engineering practice: design, develop, deploy and operate production ready AI solutions for clients and colleagues, well integrated with existing Caribbean systems and data infrastructure.
• Establish the engineering foundations for AI at scale: reusable patterns for LLM integration, retrieval augmented generation (RAG), agent orchestration, evaluation and testing frameworks, prompt and context management, and an AI asset registry with versioning.
• Lead operational support for AI solutions in production: monitoring and observability, incident management, logging, performance tuning, drift and quality detection, and AIOps.
• Champion ethical and responsible AI: ensure all initiatives comply with RBC policies and regulatory requirements applicable to banking in Canada and the Caribbean (e.g., OSFI guidance, model risk management, privacy legislation), and partner with Risk, Compliance and Legal on approvals.
• Stay abreast of AI advancements, evaluate their applicability to the Caribbean banking context, and act as an internal thought leader on applied AI.

Software development and delivery: KYC and Specialized Business Applications

• Lead the software development team accountable for a portfolio of vendor applications supporting Specialized Business functions, including release management, configuration, integration, upgrades, incident response and production support.
• Lead active development of the KYC platform: own the backlog, architecture direction, engineering quality, security and delivery cadence, in close partnership with AML/Compliance and Operations stakeholders.
• Manage vendor relationships and service ownership: contracts and SLAs, roadmap alignment, escalations and performance reviews.
• Deliver the project portfolio through disciplined Agile delivery (planning, dependency and risk management, status reporting and executive communication) with accountability for scope, schedule, budget and quality.
• Embed modern engineering practices (DevOps, automation, CI/CD, automated testing) to improve resilience, reduce operational risk and cost, and strengthen security and availability.
• Ensure disaster recovery, uptime and resilience for all production systems in the portfolio.

Leadership and stakeholder engagement

• Lead, mentor and grow a high performing, cross regional team of data engineers, AI engineers and software developers across Toronto and the Caribbean, fostering technical excellence, collaboration and continuous improvement.
• Own talent acquisition, performance management, career development and retention for the team.
• Collaborate with Caribbean business leaders, product managers and technology partners to understand requirements, define scope and manage expectations; communicate clearly at senior levels.
• Contribute to the Senior Director’s broader technology strategy and represent the portfolio in governance forums.

What do you need to succeed?

Must hav e

• 10+ years of progressive experience across data engineering, software development and/or AI engineering, with 8+ years in a leadership role managing engineers and delivery teams, with a strong emphasis on production delivery and operations.
• Proven experience working within the banking or financial services industry, with a clear understanding of its data, processes, regulatory context and business challenges.
• Demonstrated track record of delivering large scale, multi project programs in complex enterprise environments, including Agile delivery, dependency mitigation, budget and vendor management.
• Hands on AI engineering skills and proven experience building AI solutions from concept to production: LLM integration, RAG, agent frameworks, evaluation and testing, and AI observability.
• Strong experience with modern data architecture and cloud data platforms (e.g., data lake and medallion architectures, Databricks or equivalent, Spark, streaming such as Kafka, and orchestration).
• Experience managing a portfolio of vendor applications alongside internal development, including production support and incident management.
• Exceptional leadership, mentorship and team building abilities; outstanding communication, presentation and stakeholder management skills, including with senior executives.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science or a related quantitative field.

Nice to have

• Experience with KYC, AML or onboarding platforms and related regulatory obligations.
• Experience leading distributed or cross regional teams; familiarity with Caribbean or international banking.
• Knowledge of data engineering tools.
• Master’s degree in a related field.
• Adaptability, critical thinking and a growth mindset; a team contributor who cares about team members.

What’s in it for you?

We thrive on the challenge to be our best, progressive thinking to keep growing, and working together to deliver trusted advice to help our clients thrive and communities prosper. We care about each other, reaching our potential, making a difference to our communities, and achieving success that is mutual.

• A comprehensive Total Rewards Program including bonuses and flexible benefits, competitive compensation, and stock where applicable
• Leaders who support your development through coaching and managing opportunities
• Ability to make a difference and lasting impact
• Work in a dynamic, collaborative, progressive, and high performing team
• A world class training program in financial services
• Flexible work and life balance options
• Opportunities to do challenging work

Job Skills

• Application Development
• Application Maintenance
• Applications Architecture
• Commercial Acumen
• Enterprise Application Delivery
• Information Technology Management
• Information Technology Trends
• Programming Languages
• System Applications

Additional Job Details

Address: RBC WATERPARK PLACE, 88 QUEENS QUAY W:TORONTO

City: Toronto

Country: Canada

Work hours/week: 37.5

Employment Type: Full time

Platform: TECHNOLOGY AND OPERATIONS

Job Type: Regular

Pay Type: Salaried

Posted Date: 2026-09-23

Application Deadline: 2026-10-28

Note: Applications will be accepted until 11:59 PM on the day prior to the application deadline date above

Our Employment Opportunities

At RBC, we are guided by living shared values of Client First, Integrity, Collaboration, Respect and Excellence and winning together as One RBC. We believe an inclusive workplace that has diverse perspectives is core to our continued growth as one of the largest and most successful banks in the world. Maintaining a workplace where our employees feel supported to perform at their best, effectively collaborate, drive innovation, and grow professionally helps to bring our Purpose to life and create value for our clients and communities. RBC strives to deliver this through policies and programs intended to foster a workplace based on respect, belonging and opportunity for all.