Senior Director, ATOM Engineering

Royal Bank of Canada • Toronto, ON

13d • Onsite

About The Position

RBC's AI Group has developed ATOM (Asynchronous Temporal Model), a groundbreaking proprietary AI foundation model that is transforming how RBC serves its clients. ATOM learns from billions of financial event sequences to power personalized client experiences, intelligent credit decisions, fraud detection, and innovative digital banking solutions. The Senior Director, ATOM Engineering will lead the engineering team responsible for deploying, scaling, and operationalizing ATOM across RBC's enterprise platforms. This is a high-impact technical leadership role at the forefront of RBC's $1 billion AI ambition, where you'll translate cutting-edge AI research into production-grade solutions that serve millions of clients. You'll build and lead a team of software engineers, ML engineers, and technical product managers who are responsible for taking ATOM from research innovation to enterprise-scale deployment. Your work will directly enable transformative AI solutions across credit, loyalty, fraud, digital channels, and beyond.

Requirements

• 12+ years of experience in software engineering, platform engineering, or ML engineering roles with at least 3-5 years in leadership positions and people management.
• Proven track record building and deploying large-scale, mission-critical software systems in production environments, preferably in financial services or other regulated industries.
• Strong understanding of machine learning operations (MLOps), model deployment, model serving infrastructure, and production ML systems.
• Experience leading cross-functional engineering teams (10+ people) delivering complex technical solutions across multiple business domains.
• Demonstrated ability to translate research prototypes or algorithms into scalable, production-grade software solutions.

Nice To Haves

• Experience building or deploying AI foundation models, large language models, or similar advanced AI systems in production.
• Background in financial services technology with understanding of banking systems, transaction processing, and regulatory requirements.
• Hands-on experience with AI/ML frameworks (TensorFlow, PyTorch) and understanding of deep learning model architectures.
• Knowledge of data engineering, real-time data pipelines, and integration with enterprise data platforms.
• Familiarity with responsible AI practices, model governance, bias detection, and explainability techniques.
• Experience with agile delivery methodologies, product management, and outcome-driven development.
• Computer Science degree or equivalent technical background; advanced degree (MS, PhD) in related field is a plus.
• Track record of innovation through patents, technical publications, or open-source contributions.

Responsibilities

• Lead the end-to-end engineering, deployment, and support for RBC foundation models. Support delivery teams throughout the consumption of these models in production.
• Build robust, scalable, and secure software infrastructure to support ATOM's integration with RBC's enterprise platforms and the Lumina AI & Data Platform.
• Partner with VP, Applied AI and VP, Research teams to translate research on foundation models into production-ready, enterprise-grade software solutions.
• Drive the technical roadmap for ATOM (and other foundation model) engineering capabilities including model serving infrastructure, API development, integration patterns, and deployment automation.
• Ensure solutions that incorporate RBC foundation models meet RBC's performance, reliability, scalability, and security requirements for mission-critical banking applications.
• Collaborate closely with business line CIOs, product managers, and technology teams to understand and support the use of foundation models in production.
• Partner with platform teams (Lumina, AI & ML Platform, Agentic Platform) to ensure seamless integration of foundation models with RBC's AI infrastructure.
• Work with AI Governance, Model Risk, and third-party risk teams to ensure all deployments meet regulatory, compliance, and ethical AI standards.
• Engage with AI Research teams to provide feedback on model development, identify production-challenges, and influence research priorities based on deployment learnings.
• Build and lead a high-performing engineering team of software engineers, ML engineers, DevOps specialists, and technical product managers.
• Foster a culture of engineering excellence, innovation, and accountability with focus on delivering measurable business outcomes.
• Develop team capabilities in modern software engineering practices, MLOps, cloud-native architectures, and AI solution delivery.
• Mentor engineers and create career development pathways for growing technical leadership talent.
• Establish and own operational excellence for ATOM-powered solutions including monitoring, incident response, performance optimization, and continuous improvement.
• Implement robust DevOps and MLOps practices to enable rapid iteration, automated testing, and reliable deployment of ATOM models and features.
• Define and track key performance indicators (KPIs) for ATOM solutions including model performance, system reliability, latency, cost efficiency, and business impact.
• Drive ongoing optimization of ATOM infrastructure to balance performance, cost, and scalability as usage grows across the enterprise.

Benefits

• Comprehensive Total Rewards Program including competitive compensation, bonuses, flexible benefits, and stock options.
• Talent development: Leaders who support your growth through coaching, mentorship, and opportunities to influence RBC's technology direction.
• Opportunities for progressively greater impact: As ATOM scales across RBC, so will your scope, influence, and career opportunities.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Education Level: Associate degree