Senior AI Engineer

CI Financial; Toronto; On-site; CAD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Training Reimbursement

Paid Professional Designations

Employee Savings Plan (ESP)

Corporate Discount Program

Enhanced group benefits

Parental Leave Top‑up program

Paid time off for Volunteering

Job summary

CI Financial is seeking an experienced Senior AI Engineer to join the Data, AI & Analytics (DNA) team on in‑office work four days per week. You’ll own intelligent applications that leverage LLMs to solve business problems and mentor junior engineers, collaborating with governance and business stakeholders to deliver production‑grade AI solutions.

Required: 4–8+ years in data science/ML/AI engineering, expertise in prompt engineering, RAG, fine‑tuning, and AI evaluation; strong Python and ML

Qualifications

• 4–8+ years of experience in data science, ML, or AI engineering.
• Experience designing, building, and shipping agentic AI systems with multi-step reasoning and tool use.
• Experience designing around real-world infra limits—rate limits, quota management, retries/backoff, and cost-per-call—at scale.

Responsibilities

• Architect and build production-grade intelligent systems and applications using existing LLMs via API integration, prompt engineering, fine-tuning, or RAG.
• Design and lead development of agentic AI systems capable of multi-step reasoning and tool use to automate complex workflows.
• Contribute to reusable AI platform design with shared tooling and infrastructure across use cases.
• Build web app AI solutions using React or Streamlit.
• Set direction and best practices for GenAI, evaluation, guardrails, and reliability.
• Lead design and code reviews, promoting experimentation, reproducibility, and responsible AI.

Skills

Prompt engineering

RAG

Fine-tuning

Evaluation methods

Python

ML libraries

Agentic workflows

Stakeholder comms

Cloud platforms

Education

CS/AI Degree

Tools

Python

Scikit-learn

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Job description

At CI, we see a great place to work as one that is a safe place for everyone to have a voice, where people are empowered to take ownership over meaningful work, where there is an opportunity to grow through stretching themselves, where they can work on innovative products and projects, and where employees are supported and engaged in doing so.

CI Financial is seeking an experienced and technically strong Senior AI Engineer to join our Data, AI & Analytics (DNA) team. This role focuses on the applied use of Generative AI and Agentic AI, leveraging existing large language models (LLMs) and platforms—not building models from scratch. As a senior member of the team, you'll take technical ownership of intelligent applications and automation tools that use LLMs to solve business problems, set best practices for the team, and mentor junior engineers, while partnering closely with business, engineering, and governance stakeholders to bring production‑grade AI solutions to life.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Applied Generative & Agentic AI:

You'll be building the agents and GenAI systems that CI's advisors, analysts, and operations teams actually rely on day to day — not prototypes that stall out after the demo.

• Architect and build production‑grade intelligent systems and applications using existing LLMs (e.g., OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, etc.) through API integration, prompt engineering, fine‑tuning, or Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG).
• Design, prototype, and lead development of agentic AI systems capable of multi‑step reasoning, task decomposition, and tool use to automate and support complex business workflows.
• Contribute to the design of a reusable, scalable AI platform (shared tooling, agent frameworks, and infrastructure) rather than one‑off point solutions, so capabilities can be reused across use cases.
• Building web app AI solutions using frameworks such as React or Streamlit.

Monitoring & Improvement:

• Set technical direction and best practices for GenAI and agentic solution design, including evaluation methodology, guardrails, and reliability of LLM‑powered systems.
• Drive continuous iteration and improvement of models and LLM‑powered tools based on performance metrics, cost, and user feedback.

Technical Leadership & Best Practices:

• Lead design and code reviews, championing best practices around experimentation, reproducibility, and responsible AI.

QUALIFICATIONS:

Education:

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, AI, Machine Learning, Statistics, or a related field.

Experience:

• 4–8+ years of experience in a data science, machine learning, or AI engineering role, including hands‑on experience delivering production systems.
• Demonstrated experience designing, building, and shipping agentic AI systems involving multi‑step reasoning, task decomposition, and tool use.
• Experience designing around real‑world infrastructure limitations—such as rate limits, quota management, retries/backoff, and cost-per-call—when architecting LLM‑powered systems at scale.

Skills:

• Deep understanding of prompt engineering, RAG, fine‑tuning, and evaluation of generative output, including tradeoffs across approaches.
• Proficiency in Python and ML/AI libraries (e.g., Scikit‑learn, PyTorch, TensorFlow).
• Hands‑on skills in designing and orchestrating agentic workflows (multi‑step reasoning, task decomposition, tool/function calling).
• Excellent communication skills; able to present complex technical concepts clearly to both technical and non‑technical stakeholders, including senior leadership.
• Experience with cloud‑based environments (AWS, Azure, or GCP).

This role follows our in‑office work model and requires employees to be onsite four days per week to support collaboration and business needs. This opportunity is for an existing vacancy with the company.

CI Financial is an independent company offering global wealth management and asset management advisory services through diverse financial services firms. Since 1965, we have consistently anticipated and responded to the changing needs of investors. We are driven by a commitment to provide individuals and institutions with the highest‑quality investments and advice. Our commitment to the highest levels of performance means that whatever their position, CI employees must be comfortable in a fast‑paced environment that will stretch them to tap into their highest potential. Employees with a healthy dose of ambition, a desire to commit to a curious mindset for continuous learning, and a willingness to go the extra mile thrive at CI.

A Supportive Environment for Success

We offer an in‑office environment, competitive benefits, and a supportive workplace to help our employees thrive both personally and professionally.

WHAT WE OFFER

• Modern HQ location within walking distance from Union Station
• Training Reimbursement
• Paid Professional Designations
• Employee Savings Plan (ESP)
• Corporate Discount Program
• Enhanced group benefits
• Parental Leave Top‑up program
• Paid time off for Volunteering

We are focused on building a diverse and inclusive workforce. If you are excited about this role and are not confident you meet all the qualification requirements, we encourage you to investigate the opportunity further.

CI Financial Corp. and all of our affiliates (“CI”) are committed to fair and accessible employment practices and provide reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities. If you require accommodations in order to apply for any job opportunities, require this posting in an additional format, or require accommodation at any stage of the recruitment process please contact us at [e-mail], or call 416-364-1145 ext. 4747.