Senior Lead AI Application Engineer

What is the Opportunity?

As the Senior Lead AI Application Engineer, you will lead multi-agentic application software engineering and full-stack delivery of secure, cloud native microservices that embed pragmatic AI. You will build production UIs and APIs that orchestrate agent workflows end to end, integrate seamlessly with RBC’s CI/CD, observability, and security pipelines, and operate reliably in regulated environments. Leveraging LLMs, data pipelines, and GPU/multi cloud stacks, you will deliver resilient, scalable services that automate complex risk and security controls, accelerate regulatory readiness, and enable safe, auditable AI behaviors. You will set standards, build reusable components, and mentor engineers across platforms and product teams.

What will you do?

• Design, build, and operate full‑stack agentic applications: React/TypeScript front‑ends and secure back‑end services (Node.js/Express or Python/FastAPI or Java/Spring Boot) exposing REST/gRPC/GraphQL APIs; deliver UIs and APIs that orchestrate agent workflows end‑to‑end.
• Engineer multi‑agent systems (plan/act/reflect, tool use, delegation) with robust state and coordination across services; implement failure handling, retries, and idempotency using frameworks such as LangGraph or AutoGen.
• Deliver CI/CD and platform automation: Docker images, GitHub Actions/Jenkins/Argo CD, IaC (Terraform/Helm), Kubernetes deployments, release/rollback and change‑control aligned to RBC standards.
• Implement context and data layers for agents: connectors (incl. MCP) to enterprise systems, streaming/eventing (Kafka), caching (Redis), vector search (pgvector/Milvus/Pinecone), and schema/PII controls to keep actions grounded and compliant.
• Build reusable SDKs, APIs, and templates for agent capabilities (inference, tools, RAG) with clear interfaces, code samples, and internal packages to accelerate teams.
• Establish runtime controls and observability: OpenTelemetry traces/metrics/logs, Grafana/Prometheus dashboards, feature flags, rate limits/quotas, circuit breakers, and SLOs for latency, quality, and cost.
• Enforce DevSecOps and zero‑trust patterns: OAuth2/OIDC, mTLS, secrets (Vault/KMS), SAST/DAST, threat modeling; ensure privacy, data residency, and compliant deployments (NIST, SOX/ITGC) across AWS/Azure/on‑prem GPU.
• Partner across Security, Risk, and Platform; mentor engineers; influence reference architectures, standards, and documentation; drive design reviews for agentic services.

What do you need to succeed?

Must Have

• Bachelors degree in Software Engineering, Computer Science or equivalent practical experience.
• 5+ years building production full‑stack systems: React/TypeScript; back‑end with Node.js/Express, Java/Spring Boot, or Python/FastAPI; strong API design (REST/gRPC/GraphQL) and event‑driven patterns.
• Hands‑on multi‑agent engineering: inter‑agent communication, shared state, tool adapters, orchestration with LangGraph/CrewAI/AutoGen; RAG pipelines; vector DBs (pgvector/Milvus/Pinecone/FAISS); MCP‑based secure connectors.
• Cloud‑native delivery on Kubernetes with CI/CD (Docker, GitHub Actions/Jenkins/Argo CD), automated testing (unit/integration/contract/E2E), and IaC (Terraform/Helm); experience with API gateways (Apigee/Kong) and service mesh (Istio/Linkerd).
• Data and integration: SQL (Snowflake/Postgres), NoSQL (MongoDB), streams (Kafka), caching (Redis); integrating with enterprise systems (ServiceNow IRM/GRC) using resilient, secure patterns.
• DevSecOps and observability: OAuth2/OIDC, mTLS, Vault/KMS, SAST/DAST; OpenTelemetry, Grafana/Prometheus; operating in regulated environments with NIST/SOX/ITGC controls.

Nice to Have

• Advanced LLM operations: fine‑tuning (LoRA/PEFT), alignment (RLHF/DPO), optimization (DeepSpeed), model serving (Triton/ONNX), and policy/guardrail engines. Distributed systems scale‑out: Ray/SageMaker, backpressure and retry strategies, multi‑region/DR, and dual‑cloud/hybrid operations.
• Security and zero‑trust depth: service mesh/mTLS, WAF, secrets rotation, key management, and advanced SAST/DAST/IAST.
• Quantitative evaluation and product analytics: statistics for A/B tests and offline evals, human feedback loops, cost/latency optimization, and data governance best practices.

What’s in it for you?

We thrive on the challenge to be our best, progressive thinking to keep growing, and working together to deliver trusted advice to help our clients thrive and communities prosper. We care about each other, reaching our potential, making a difference to our communities, and achieving success that is mutual.

• A comprehensive Total Rewards Program including bonuses and flexible benefits, competitive compensation, commissions, and stock where applicable
• Leaders who support your development through coaching and managing opportunities
• Ability to make a difference and lasting impact
• Work in a dynamic, collaborative, progressive, and high-performing team
• Flexible work/life balance options
• Opportunities to do challenging innovation work and potential for patentable solutions
• Opportunities to take on progressively greater accountabilities    

Job Skills

Agentic AI, Agentic AI, Agentic Context Engineering, AI Agent Security, API Design, Application Development, Application Integrations, Application Maintenance, Application Programming Interface (API), Applications Architecture, Artificial Intelligence (AI), AWS Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Containerization, Cybersecurity, Data Security, Design, Detail-Oriented, DevOps, DevSecOps, Docker (Software), Docker Container, Docker Kubernetes Architecture, End-to-End Testing, Enterprise Application Delivery {+ 18 more}

Additional Job Details

16 YORK ST:TORONTOTorontoCanada37.5Full timeTECHNOLOGY AND OPERATIONSRegularSalaried2026-07-102026-07-27

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

Our Employment Opportunities

At RBC, we are guided by living shared values of Client First, Integrity, Collaboration, Respect and Excellence and winning together as One RBC. We believe an inclusive workplace that has diverse perspectives is core to our continued growth as one of the largest and most successful banks in the world. Maintaining a workplace where our employees feel supported to perform at their best, effectively collaborate, drive innovation, and grow professionally helps to bring our Purpose to life and create value for our clients and communities. RBC strives to deliver this through policies and programs intended to foster a workplace based on respect, belonging and opportunity for all.

RBC is presently inviting candidates to apply for this existing vacancy. Applying to this posting allows you to express your interest in this current career opportunity at RBC. Qualified applicants may be contacted to review their resume in more detail.