Senior ML/AI Engineer, Advanced Analytics & Modelling - Customer Intelligence Platforms

Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited; Toronto; Hybrid; CAD 64,000 - 106,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Benefits + retirement

Performance incentives

Education programs

Product discounts

Job summary

Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited (“CTC”) is seeking a highly technical ML/AI Engineer to own a strategic customer intelligence platform end‑to‑end. You will master the code, prompts, models, data pipelines and architecture, and serve as the technical authority across CTC and partner teams relying on its outputs.

You will lead the platform transition, supervise model inference, feature engineering, monitoring and governance, and ensure production readiness with robust testing, observability and

Qualifications

• Graduate‑level education in CS, software engineering, ML or related field.
• 5+ years producing ML/AI in production with GenAI exposure.
• Advanced Python, SQL, PySpark and Spark in production software.
• Strong supervised and unsupervised learning foundations.
• Hands‑on production prompt engineering and evaluation.
• Experience with GenAI controls, observability and MLOps.

Responsibilities

• Own end‑to‑end ML/GenAI platform development and maintenance.
• Lead transition of third‑party engine to internal capability.
• Develop and monitor data pipelines, models, prompts and outputs.
• Implement production controls, guardrails and cost monitoring.
• Collaborate with stakeholders across marketing, analytics and IT.
• Write production‑grade Python and PySpark code for large data.

Skills

Python

SQL

PySpark

Spark

GenAI / Prompt engineering

Model evaluation & monitoring

MLOps / LLMOps

Communication with non-technical teams

Retail analytics experience

CI/CD for ML

Education

Graduate degree in CS/SE/ML or related

Tools

Azure

Databricks

MLflow

Azure Data Lake Storage

Azure Data Factory

Synapse

Containerization

CI/CD pipelines

Job description

What You'll Do:

We are seeking a highly technical and hands‑on ML/AI Engineer to take end‑to‑end ownership of one of CTC's strategic customer intelligence platforms. The platform combines machine learning, generative AI and large‑scale transaction data to identify customer shopping missions and behavioural patterns across hundreds of millions of transactions. Its outputs support Personalization, marketing, merchandising, dealer and broader customer analytics use cases. The successful candidate will lead the transition of the third party‑developed engine into a fully owned CTC capability. This includes mastering the existing code, prompts, models, data pipelines and architecture; operating and improving the production engine; and determining where components should be tuned, refactored or rebuilt. The individual will be the technical authority for the platform across CTC and the primary partner to teams that depend on its outputs. Lead the technical transition of the platform and underlying models, ensuring full understanding of the code, documentation, environments, operating knowledge and controls required to own the platform independently. Develop a deep understanding of the full engine, including customer occasion discovery and catalogue generation, transaction tagging, feature engineering, model inference, data flows and downstream outputs. Run the production platform end‑to‑end, including scheduled scoring and catalogue refreshes, model and prompt releases, pipeline monitoring, incident investigation and root‑cause remediation. Own the platform's ML capabilities, including transaction classification, clustering, feature development, model validation, performance monitoring, and drift management. Own its GenAI capabilities, including prompt architecture, context construction, model selection, prompt and model tuning, structured outputs and catalogue‑generation workflows. Build rigorous ML and GenAI evaluation frameworks using representative test sets, automated measures, human review, regression testing and analysis of failure modes. Implement production controls for GenAI, including guardrails, validation, confidence thresholds, fallback logic, version traceability and monitoring of quality, latency, usage and cost. Write and maintain production‑grade Python and PySpark code across large‑scale data processing, feature engineering, model execution, testing and deployment. Support Personalization and other enterprise use cases, translating requirements into platform enhancements and resolving model, data, integration and production issues. Improve the platform's accuracy, reliability, scalability, maintainability, runtime, and cost efficiency while ensuring continuity for downstream users. Assess the current architecture objectively and lead the refactoring, redesign or rebuilding of components that do not meet CTC's long‑term needs. Establish strong software engineering, MLOps and LLMOps practices, including automated testing, deployment, rollback, observability, and technical documentation.

What You Bring:

• Graduate‑level education in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Statistics, Mathematics, Engineering or related technical discipline.
• 5+ years developing, deploying and supporting ML or AI solutions in production, including meaningful hands‑on experience with production GenAI systems.
• Advanced Python, SQL, PySpark and Spark skills, with experience building maintainable, tested and production‑grade software rather than analytical notebooks alone.
• Strong foundation in supervised and unsupervised learning, including classification, clustering, feature engineering, model validation, monitoring, and drift detection.
• Hands‑on production prompt engineering experience, including prompt design, context construction, structured outputs, versioning, regression testing and optimisation.
• Experience selecting, evaluating and tuning foundation LLMs, with a clear understanding of when to use prompt engineering, retrieval, model adaptation or fine‑tuning.
• Experience evaluating GenAI systems through representative test sets, automated and human review, quality measures, structured error analysis, and production monitoring.
• Experience implementing GenAI controls, including grounding, guardrails, validation, fallback strategies, observability and model and prompt lineage.
• Experience with Azure and Databricks, including MLflow, Azure Data Lake Storage, Azure Data Factory, Synapse and related data and deployment services.
• Experience with CI/CD, automated testing, version control, containerization, and release management for ML and GenAI applications.
• Strong problem‑solving and root‑cause analysis skills, with the ability to explain model behaviour, limitations and technical trade‑offs to technical and non‑technical partners.
• Experience with customer intelligence, recommendation systems, and behavioural modelling is an asset.
• Experience with large‑scale batch inference, retrieval‑augmented generation, semantic search, vector databases or agentic workflows is an asset.
• Experience in retail, loyalty, marketing, ecommerce, or customer analytics is an asset.

Benefits:

• Comprehensive benefits and retirement programs
• Performance incentives, Continuing Education Programs
• Other perks to support your well‑being
• Career growth opportunities and product discounts
• Broadband

Salary Range: $64,000 – $106,000. Salary decisions are also dependent on other factors such as your experience, industry benchmarks, internal equity and other role‑specific requirements. For critical roles, the compensation offering will be reviewed to ensure alignment with market rate and conditions and the unique value you bring to the role.

Location: Toronto, Ontario (Hybrid: In‑office 4 days per week)

About Us

Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited (“CTC”) is one of Canada’s most admired and trusted companies. With more than 90 Owned Brands, over 1,600 retail locations, financial services, exemplary e‑commerce capabilities, and exciting market‑leading merchandising strategies. We dream big and work as one to innovate with purpose for our customers at every level of our business, investing in new technologies and products, and doubling down on top talent to drive the company forward. We offer competitive salaries and wages to CTC employees, as well as store discounts, supported learning through our Triangle Learning Academy, Canadian Tire Profit Sharing, and retirement and savings programs for eligible employees. As part of our enhanced flex benefits program, we offer mental health benefits in the amount of $5,000 per year for benefits‑eligible employees and their families, including total well‑being, and mental health tools and resources for all employees. Join us in helping to make life in Canada better through living and working our Core Values: we are innovators and entrepreneurs at our core, outcomes drive us, inclusion is a must, we are stronger together and we take personal responsibility. It is an especially exciting time to join CTC and its family of companies where career opportunities are wide-ranging! Join us, where there's a place for you here.

Diversity & Inclusion

We are committed to fostering an environment where belonging thrives, and diversity, inclusion and equity are infused into everything we do. We believe in building an organizational culture where people are consistently treated with dignity while respecting individual religion, nationality, gender, race, age, perceived ability, spoken language, sexual orientation, and identification. We are united in our purpose of being here to help make life in Canada better. Accommodations We stand firm in our Core Value that inclusion is a must. We welcome and encourage candidates from equity‑seeking groups such as people who identify as racialised, Indigenous, 2SLGBTQIA+, women, people with disabilities, and beyond. Should you require any accommodation in applying for this role, or throughout the interview process, please make them known when contacted and we will work with you to help meet your needs.

Contact & Recruitment Info

#LI-AK1 We may use artificial intelligence tools as part of our recruitment process to assist in the initial screening of resumes. All hiring decisions, including candidate evaluation, selection, and disposition, are made by human recruiters.

We are one of Canada’s most admired and trusted companies. With world‑class owned brands and exciting market‑leading merchandising strategies, we are continually innovating with purpose: to excite and serve Canadian customers from coast‑to‑coast. We are connected to communities, big and small, from coast‑to‑coast, offering products and services that reflect the diverse nature of every one of them. From sports to outdoors, automobiles to homes, we know and understand life in Canada like no other retailer.

We are always on the lookout for curious, creative people who are able to navigate and excel in a rapidly evolving retail environment. If you’re ready to take on new challenges – be it in digital, IT, marketing, data & analytics, merchandising, or one of the many other roles we have – there is a place for you here, so