Principal Architect - AI and Data Platforms

Canadian Tire Financial Services; Mississauga; On-site; CAD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Canadian Tire Financial Services seeks a Principal Architect – AI & Data Platforms to shape the organization's AI and data strategy. You will define end-to-end architecture, drive scalable AI and data solutions, and lead governance and standards across enterprise programs.

You will mentor teams, collaborate with business and technology stakeholders, and guide large-scale transformations while ensuring security, compliance, and standardization across platforms.

Qualifications

• 5–10+ years of enterprise architecture, data platforms, or AI/ML solutions.
• Experience delivering large-scale AI/data solutions across ecosystems.
• Agentic AI and GenAI experience including LLMs and MLOps concepts.

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve AI and Data Platform architecture strategy and roadmap.
• Lead platform and technology leadership across data, AI pipelines, BI, and governance.
• Ensure governance, security, and compliance alignment across projects.
• Mentor architecture teams and drive practice development.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to translate requirements into scalable solutions.

Skills

Enterprise architecture leadership

Strategic thinking

Communication & storytelling

Cross-functional collaboration

Mentoring architecture teams

Value delivery & standardization

Program and governance experience

Innovation mindset

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s in CS/Engineering

PhD considered an asset

Tools

Azure

Databricks

Synapse

Unity Catalog / Data governance

Terraform

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

**What you'll do**As a Principal Architect – AI & Data Platforms, you will play a pivotal leadership role within the Enterprise AI and Emerging Technology team, responsible for shaping and executing the organization’s strategy across AI, Data Platforms, and Data Governance (DG).You will define and drive the end-to-end architecture vision, ensuring alignment between business strategy, enterprise architecture standards, and modern platform capabilities. This includes leading the design and implementation of scalable AI and data solutions, establishing governance and standards, and guiding large-scale transformation initiatives.You will work closely with stakeholders across business and technology teams to build future-ready AI and data ecosystems, while leading architectural practices and mentoring teams.**Strategy & Architecture Leadership*** Define and evolve the AI and Data Platform architecture strategy and roadmap, aligned with enterprise business priorities* Establish future-state architecture vision across AI, data, analytics, and governance domains* Develop and maintain architecture models, standards, and roadmaps that guide technology investments and delivery* Lead enterprise-wide solution blueprints covering data platforms, AI pipelines, BI, and governance capabilities**Platform & Technology Leadership*** Design and evolve modern data platforms (e.g., Lakehouse architectures, data engineering pipelines, BI/reporting ecosystems)* Architect scalable AI/ML systems leveraging cloud platforms such as Azure (preferred), or GCP* Lead adoption of event-driven, streaming, and integration architectures across enterprise systems* Evaluate emerging technologies and guide build vs. buy and innovation decisions**Governance, Standards & Compliance*** Enforce AI, data, and architecture governance standards in collaboration with enterprise governance functions* Ensure solutions align with architecture principles, security standards, and compliance requirements* Contribute to the evolution of enterprise architecture frameworks, practices, and processes* Lead architecture reviews and govern solution design through project lifecycle gates**Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement*** Partner with business and technology stakeholders to translate requirements into architecture solutions* Drive cross-functional alignment across data engineers, data scientists, BI teams, and platform teams* Present architectural strategies and solutions to senior leadership and executive stakeholders* Advocate for enterprise architecture practices and promote technology standardization and reuse**Leadership & Practice Development*** Lead and mentor architecture team members and contribute to capability growth (including direct reports where applicable)* Drive continuous improvement in engineering practices, performance optimization, and solution quality* Foster a culture of innovation, collaboration, and technical excellence across AI and data domains**What you bring*** 5–10+ years of experience in enterprise architecture, data platforms, or AI/ML solutions* Proven experience delivering large-scale, complex solutions across AI and data ecosystems* Agentic AI experience (Tool Usage, Agentic Orchestration Frameworks, LLMs, Testing and Evaluation, AgentOps)* GenAI (LLMs, Monitoring, Testing and Evaluation, LLMOps, Observability, RAG)* Data platforms & lakehouse architectures (e.g., ADLS Gen2, Databricks, Synapse, ETL/ELT, Unity Catalog)* MLOps technologies (ML, NLP)* Cloud platforms (Azure preferred; AWS/GCP knowledge beneficial)* Big data technologies (e.g., Spark, Hadoop)* DevOps & CI/CD practices, Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, etc.)* Containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes)**Leadership Skills*** Strong strategic thinking and enterprise architecture leadership capabilities* Excellent communication and storytelling skills, with ability to engage executive audiences* Ability to operate effectively in complex, evolving environments* Collaborative mindset with a focus on value delivery, standardization, and scalability**Education*** Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (PhD considered an asset)