Senior Consultant, AI Safety and Guardrails Engineering

CIBC US; Toronto; Hybrid; CAD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Incentive pay

Benefits program

Pension plan

Employee share purchase plan

Vacation offering

Wellbeing support

MomentMakers program

Job summary

CIBC is seeking a Senior Consultant, AI Safety and Guardrails Engineering, to translate AI policies into concrete governance controls and integrate them into CI/CD pipelines. You will collaborate with MLOps, platform engineering, and cybersecurity teams to ensure responsible AI deployment and lifecycle governance across Azure and Databricks environments.

The role emphasizes building scalable guardrails for AI models and agents, with a hybrid work arrangement (1–3 days on-site) and a focus on

Qualifications

• Translate AI policies, standards, and risk requirements into policy-as-code patterns and automated checks.
• Integrate governance into the AI lifecycle across model onboarding, evaluation, release, monitoring, and change management.
• Implement automated controls and evidence collection for AI risk assessments and governance.
• Experience with secure AI deployment, access governance, and CI/CD integration in production environments.

Responsibilities

• Design, prototype, and validate governance controls across platforms, pipelines, and operational processes.
• Collaborate with MLOps, platform engineering, architecture, cybersecurity, risk, and AI delivery teams to ensure governance is embedded in the AI lifecycle.
• Define and implement reference control patterns and technical guidance for reuse across AI platforms.
• Support scalable governance patterns for emerging AI architectures and operating models.

Skills

Python

APIs

Git

CI/CD

Automated testing

AI lifecycle

Policy as code

Education

Bachelor's in Computer Science/Engineering/Data Science

Tools

Azure

Databricks

Job description

We’re building a relationship-oriented bank for the modern world. We need talented, passionate professionals who are dedicated to doing what’s right for our clients. At CIBC, we embrace your strengths and your ambitions, so you are empowered at work. Our team members have what they need to make a meaningful impact and are truly valued for who they are and what they contribute. To learn more about CIBC, please visit CIBC.com

What you’ll be doing

The Enterprise AI Governance Office (AIGO), part of the Enterprise Advanced Analytics and AI Hub at CIBC, helps ensure AI activities are governed in line with the Enterprise AI Framework and its supporting processes and standards. As a Senior Consultant, AI Safety and Guardrails Engineering, you’ll help advance CIBC’s Governed AI by Design mandate by translating AI policies, standards, and risk requirements into practical, testable, and reusable technical controls. You’ll design, prototype, and validate governance controls, and support their implementation across the platforms, development pipelines, and operational processes used to develop and deploy AI. Working closely with Machine Learning Operations (MLOps), platform engineering, architecture, cybersecurity, risk, and AI delivery teams, you’ll help integrate governance into the AI lifecycle in a way that supports responsible innovation. While technology and platform teams will retain ownership of production platforms, pipelines, and deployments, you’ll provide the governance engineering patterns, control requirements, validation, and advisory support needed for effective implementation. At CIBC we enable the work environment most optimal for you to thrive in your role. You'll have the flexibility to manage your work activities within a hybrid work arrangement where you'll spend 1-3 days per week on-site, while other days will be remote.

How you’ll succeed

Governance engineering - Translate AI policies, standards, and risk requirements into policy-as-code patterns, automated checks, deployment gates, configuration rules, runtime guardrails, and measurable acceptance criteria. Define the evidence required to demonstrate that controls are implemented appropriately and remain effective over time. AI lifecycle integration - Partner with MLOps, platform engineering, and AI delivery teams to design and support governance controls across model onboarding, evaluation, approval, release, monitoring, and change management. Help integrate these controls into continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines in a way that supports delivery efficiency. Reusable control patterns - Design, prototype, and validate reference implementations, control patterns, and technical guidance that can be adopted consistently across AI platforms and use cases. Support teams using technologies such as Microsoft Azure and Databricks in implementing controls for lifecycle management, access governance, traceability, evaluation, and monitoring. Generative and agentic AI guardrails - Help design and validate technical guardrails for large language model applications and AI agents, including agent identity, tool access, permissions, human approval checkpoints, memory, external connectivity, execution boundaries, and traceability of agent actions. Contribute to scalable governance patterns for emerging AI architectures and operating models. Control assurance and effectiveness - Prototype approaches to capture control configurations, test results, approvals, and operational telemetry to reduce manual effort in AI risk assessments and ongoing oversight. Work with relevant teams to evaluate controls related to reliability, inappropriate outputs, prompt injection, sensitive data disclosure, unauthorized actions, and other applicable AI risks, while helping define remediation and escalation criteria. Risk advisory and continuous improvement - Review AI solution designs, identify control gaps, and recommend practical mitigations that are proportionate to the use case and its risk. Help define monitoring expectations, material change triggers, and exception requirements so governance controls continue to operate effectively as AI solutions evolve.

Who you are

You can demonstrate hands‑on engineering experience. You have experience in software engineering, machine learning engineering, MLOps, or AI platform engineering, including developing or supporting production systems. You bring strong programming skills, preferably in Python, along with practical experience using application programming interfaces, Git, automated testing, and CI/CD pipelines. You understand how AI solutions move into production. You have a strong understanding of the AI and machine learning lifecycle, including data preparation, model and application evaluation, deployment, versioning, monitoring, and change management. You can translate policy and risk requirements into technical designs, implementation tasks, and testable acceptance criteria. You have experience implementing automated controls. You’ve worked with approaches such as policy as code, deployment gates, access restrictions, configuration validation, or infrastructure as code. You understand how controls can be embedded into engineering workflows and how implementation evidence can be captured and evaluated. You're digitally savvy. You work effectively with engineering and platform teams and adapt quickly to evolving AI technologies. It’s an asset if you have hands‑on experience with Microsoft Azure and Databricks, large language model applications, retrieval‑augmented generation, AI agents, AI evaluation frameworks, adversarial testing, or AI security tooling. Experience in financial services or another regulated environment is also an asset. You have a degree/diploma in computer science, engineering, data science, or a related field.

Values matter to you

You bring your real self to work, and you live our values - trust, teamwork, and accountability.

What CIBC Offers

• competitive salary
• incentive pay
• banking benefits
• a benefits program*
• defined benefit pension plan*
• an employee share purchase plan
• a vacation offering
• wellbeing support
• MomentMakers, our social, points‑based recognition program

*Subject to plan and program terms and conditions

What you need to know

CIBC is committed to creating an inclusive environment where all team members and clients feel like they belong. We seek applicants with a wide range of abilities and we provide an accessible candidate experience. If you need accommodation, please contact [e-mail] CIBC is committed to clarity in our hiring process. All roles posted are opportunities we’re actively recruiting for, unless stated otherwise. You need to be legally eligible to work at the location(s) specified above and, where applicable, must have a valid work or study permit. We may ask you to complete an attribute-based assessment and other skills test (such as simulation, coding, French proficiency). We use artificial intelligence tools during the recruitment process. Our goal for the application process is to get to know more about you, all that you have to offer, and give you the opportunity to learn more about us.

Job Location Toronto-81 Bay, 21st Floor

Employment Type Regular

Weekly Hours 37.5

Skills Artificial Intelligence Ethics, Cloud Governance, Governance Framework, Policy Compliance, Policy Development, Quality Assurance (QA) Standards, Regulatory Compliance, Risk Management and Mitigation, Standards Compliance

At CIBC, we are in business to help our clients, employees and shareholders achieve what is important to them. Our ability to create value for all CIBC stakeholders is driven by a business culture based on common values: Trust, Teamwork and Accountability. Working with CIBC makes you a part of a work environment committed to our clients, employees and communities - a place where you can excel. Every day, our 48,000 employees help our clients achieve their financial goals, because what matters to our clients, matters to us.