Principal Platform Engineer

RBC; Toronto; On-site; CAD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading financial institution in Toronto seeks a Principal Platform Engineer to design and build a scalable data platform integral to analytics and AI initiatives. You'll collaborate across teams, lead incident response, and mentor engineers while leveraging your extensive expertise in Kubernetes and Infrastructure-as-Code. This role promises competitive compensation and a chance to impact banking solutions significantly.

Benefits

Comprehensive Total Rewards Program

Bonuses and flexible benefits

Supportive leadership for development

Qualifications

• 15+ years of experience in software or infrastructure engineering.
• At least 5 years focused on platform engineering or cloud infrastructure at scale.
• Track record of technical leadership and mentoring.

Responsibilities

• Design and build a scalable data platform.
• Implement Infrastructure-as-Code and GitOps.
• Collaborate with product, security, and compliance teams.
• Lead incident response and reliability engineering.
• Act as a technical mentor and thought leader.
• Define and execute a strategic roadmap for platform evolution.

Skills

Kubernetes

Infrastructure-as-Code

Terraform

GitOps tools

CI/CD systems

Spark computing

Kafka

DevOps pipelines

Python

Bash

JavaScript

Education

Bachelor's or Master’s in Computer Science or related discipline

Job description

Overview

Job Description

We’re looking for an experienced Principal Platform Engineer who will bring focus and subject-matter expertise around designing and implementing a next generation data platform, within our Lumina suite. This is a unique opportunity to build a platform that will be the foundation for analytics and AI at RBC. At RBC Borealis, you’ll be joining a team that works directly with data at petabyte scale, building foundational systems that enable every major initiative within Lumina's portfolio. You will contribute to code and systems that power breakthrough AI capabilities, advanced analytics platforms, and next-generation customer experiences.

What You\'ll Do

• Design and build a scalable data platform that empowers engineering teams to ship features reliably, securely, and quickly.
• Implement Infrastructure-as-Code and GitOps patterns to promote consistency, automation, and compliance across environments.
• Collaborate with product, security, and compliance stakeholders to build platform services that meet SLAs and governance standards.
• Lead incident response, reliability engineering, and observability improvements to ensure platform uptime and performance.
• Act as a technical mentor and thought leader, guiding teams on infrastructure architecture, platform adoption, and best practices.
• Define and execute a strategic roadmap to evolve the internal platform in line with company growth and technology direction.
• Be an active contributor to not only your individual team, but to the RBC development community.

Your Background

• 15+ years of experience in software or infrastructure engineering, with at least 5 years focused on platform engineering or cloud infrastructure at scale.
• Expert-level experience with Kubernetes, including provisioning, cluster lifecycle management, workload orchestration, and multi-tenant design.
• Strong expertise in Terraform, GitOps tools (e.g., ArgoCD), and CI/CD systems (e.g., GitHub Actions, Spinnaker).
• Passion for developer experience. You think about tooling, abstraction, reliability, and feedback loops as core parts of platform success.
• Track record of technical leadership, mentoring, and influencing engineering culture at a large scale.
• Bachelor\'s or Master’s in Computer Science or related discipline, or equivalent practical experience.

Nice to Have

• Experience designing and operating Data Platforms or building platform-as-a-service abstractions.
• Exposure to multi-cloud or hybrid-cloud environments and associated design trade-offs.
• Strong cost optimization and governance expertise.
• Active contributor to the opensource community.

You're our ideal candidate if you have

• Strong expertise with Spark computing and Kafka.
• Experience building and maintaining DevOps pipelines such as Jenkins, GitHub Actions.
• Experience with orchestration tools such as AirFlow, KubeFlow, Dagster, Flyte, or MetaFlow.
• Experience with building tools and applications to automate various infrastructure and DevOps tasks.
• Proficiency with programming languages such as Python, Bash, or JavaScript.
• Solid understanding of the UNIX operating system.
• Implementing monitoring solutions to identify system bottlenecks and production issues.
• Knowledge of professional software engineering best practices for the full software development life cycle, including testing methods, coding standards, code reviews and source control management.

What\'s in it for you?

• Become part of a team that thinks progressively and works collaboratively. We care about seeing each other reach full potential.
• A comprehensive Total Rewards Program including bonuses and flexible benefits, competitive compensation, commissions, and stock options where applicable.
• Leaders who support your development through coaching and managing opportunities.
• Ability to make a difference and lasting impact from a local-to-global scale.

About RBC Borealis

RBC Borealis is the driving force behind Royal Bank of Canada’s AI and data innovation. We bring together a team of architects, engineers, scientists, and product experts to revolutionize finance through world-class research, solutions, and a resilient data platform. With locations across Toronto, Waterloo, Montreal, Calgary, and Vancouver, we are at the forefront of AI research and platform development. Our focus includes time series forecasting, causal machine learning, and responsible AI, and we integrate AI research and data engineering to solve critical challenges in finance. We build intelligent, scalable, data-driven solutions that drive innovation for our customers across the bank.

Inclusion and Equal Opportunity Employment

RBC is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, protected veterans status, Aboriginal/Native American status, or any other legally-protected factors. Disability-related accommodations during the application process are available upon request.

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

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: 2026-01-25
• Application Deadline: 2026-02-28