Principal AI Engineer, Agentic Models and Data Platforms

Aimlroles; Calgary; On-site; CAD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

RBC is seeking a Principal Engineer to lead AI/Agentic initiatives in Calgary. You will architect agentic systems, retrieval augmented generation, and scalable data pipelines with strong stakeholder engagement.

Expect to advance observability, secure backend APIs, and drive production-grade data products, leveraging PySpark, Databricks, Airflow, Kafka, and Snowflake in a collaborative, regulated environment.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science or related technical field involving coding, or equivalent experience.
• 10+ years of professional software engineering with strong Python and SQL; Spark/Databricks SQL a plus.
• Experience designing scalable backend architectures, including schema design and data lifecycle management.
• Strong knowledge of algorithms, data structures, and systems engineering fundamentals.
• Hands-on data engineering with Python, PySpark, Databricks, Airflow, Kafka, Snowflake, and modern data integration patterns.
• Experience building production services and APIs, including service design, authentication/authorization, with Node.js and Apigee a plus.
• Practical AI experience: RAG, LLM apps, evaluation, observability, and lifecycle management.

Responsibilities

• Architect and implement agentic systems including tool-using agents and orchestration pipelines.
• Design Retrieval Augmented Generation solutions with document ingestion, indexing, and vector search.
• Build evaluation harnesses and metrics for factuality, safety, latency, cost, and outcomes.
• Implement observability with tracing, telemetry, drift detection, and runbooks for production operations.
• Lead real-time and batch data pipelines powering analytics and AI use cases.
• Design governed data products with contracts, lineage, and SLAs for cross-domain consumption.
• Build scalable runtime patterns: caching, rate limiting, concurrency, idempotency, degradation.
• Contribute to reference architectures, reusable libraries, and platform components.

Skills

Python

SQL

Spark

Databricks SQL

Algorithms

Data structures

PySpark

Airflow

Kafka

Snowflake

Node.js

Apigee

RAG

LLM

Observability

Security

OAuth 2.0

LDAP

Kerberos

Vault

Education

Bachelor in CS or related field

Master's degree (nice to have)

Tools

Python

PySpark

Databricks

Airflow

Kafka

Snowflake

Node.js

Apigee

Job description

Job Description

The Principal position will be responsible for leading and delivering key AI/Agentic initiatives under the AI Reuse Development Portfolio. The ideal candidate would leverage their extensive software engineering experience in designing and implementing of such initiatives from the ground up, while also successfully navigating through the org through active stakeholder engagement.

What will you do?

• Architect and implement agentic systems, including tool using agents, workflow orchestrators, and multi step reasoning pipelines that reliably execute business tasks.
• Design and deliver Retrieval Augmented Generation solutions, including document ingestion, chunking, indexing, vector search, hybrid search, reranking, and grounding strategies over curated data products.
• Build evaluation harnesses and quality gates, including offline test sets, golden datasets, regression suites, and metrics for factuality, safety, latency, cost, and business outcomes.
• Implement observability for AI systems, including tracing across prompts and tool calls, telemetry, drift detection, and runbooks for production operations
• Lead the build of batch and real time data pipelines, including inbound, outbound, and event driven flows that power analytics and AI use cases.
• Design governed data products with clear contracts, documentation, lineage, and SLAs, enabling consistent consumption across domains.
• Establish high quality ingestion, transformation, and serving patterns using lakehouse and warehouse paradigms, plus streaming where appropriate.
• Partner with data stewards and domain teams to define data standards, quality controls, and metadata that ensure trust and reusability
• Design and build backend services and APIs that expose data products, agent capabilities, and AI workflows as reliable, secure services.
• Apply rigorous engineering practices, including code quality, automated testing, CI/CD, performance engineering, and secure by default design.
• Build scalable runtime patterns for AI systems, including caching, rate limiting, concurrency control, idempotency, and graceful degradation.
• Contribute to reference architectures, reusable libraries, and platform components that accelerate delivery across teams.

Must Have:

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or related technical field involving coding (e.g., physics or mathematics), or equivalent technical experience.
• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience with strong Python and SQL, Spark and Databricks SQL are a plus.
• Demonstrated experience designing and operating scalable backend architectures, including schema design, dimensional modeling, and data lifecycle management.
• Strong knowledge of algorithms and data structures, plus systems engineering fundamentals, reliability, performance, and debugging.
• Hands on experience with data engineering platforms and tools, commonly including Python, PySpark, Databricks, Airflow, Kafka, Snowflake, and modern data integration patterns.
• Experience building production services and APIs, including service design, authentication and authorization, and integration patterns, Node.js and Apigee are a plus.
• Practical experience delivering AI powered systems, including one or more of:
  • RAG systems and vector search, embeddings, reranking, and grounding strategies
  • LLM application development, structured outputs, prompt and tool calling, orchestration patterns
  • AI evaluation, test harnesses, regression testing, and lifecycle management for prompts and models
  • Observability for AI systems, tracing, monitoring, alerting, and cost controls

• Working knowledge of security and identity frameworks such as OAuth 2.0, LDAP, Kerberos, and Vault integration, with experience operating in regulated environments.

Nice to have:

• Master’s degree in computer science or equivalent experience.
• Experience with agent frameworks and workflow patterns, such as graph based orchestration, tool routing, plan and execute loops, and human in the loop designs.
• MLOps and LLMOps experience, including CI/CD for ML and LLM applications, model registries, feature stores, experiment tracking, and safe rollout patterns
• Automation and DevOps experience, such as GitHub Actions, infrastructure as code, and automated QA.
• Experience working in Agile or SAFe environments.
• Experience with frontend or portal integration for AI experiences, for example Angular based portals, analytics integration, or enterprise enablement tooling.

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, commissions, 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
• Opportunities to do challenging work.

Job Skills

Big Data Analytics, Client Counseling, Coaching Others, Critical Thinking, Decision Making, Industry Knowledge, Machine Learning (ML), Results-Oriented, Software Engineering, Software Product Design

Additional Job Details

• Address: 335 8 AVE SW:CALGARY
• City: Calgary
• Country: Canada
• Work hours/week: 37.5
• Employment Type: Full time
• Platform: TECHNOLOGY AND OPERATIONS
• Job Type: Regular
• Pay Type: Salaried
• Posted Date: 2025-12-23
• Application Deadline: 2026-10-08

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.