RBC Borealis is looking for a Director to lead an applied AI group of machine learning researchers and research engineers in delivering cutting-edge generative AI solutions for the financial services industry. This team specializes in advanced LLM capabilities, including fine-tuning foundation models and frontier agentic system engineering. As a key member of our organization, you will provide strategic leadership and direction to drive the effectiveness of your team, enabling them to deliver high-value business outcomes through the application of state-of-the-art generative AI and LLM technologies.

Your responsibilities include:

Develop and productize innovative generative AI approaches and novel intellectual property, driving business impact through applied research in LLM fine-tuning, agentic harness engineering, and advanced system architectures;
Lead a team of researchers and research engineers who contribute to high-value AI solutions across multiple business initiatives, ensuring technical excellence and successful delivery;
Engage with business partners to define generative AI solutions that meet business needs, working closely with stakeholders to understand requirements and develop effective solutions leveraging large language models;
Provide technical leadership and scientific guidance to applied research projects focused on advancing LLM capabilities, collaborating with cross-functional teams to drive innovation in areas such as agentic system design, model fine-tuning and optimization, scalable deployment architectures, and performance optimization for latency, cost, and quality trade-offs;
Establish and promote Borealis as a thought leader in the field of generative AI and large language models, contributing to the company's reputation and visibility through publications, talks, and industry engagement.

You're our ideal candidate if you have:

A Master's or Ph.D. degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, or a related technical field, or equivalent qualifications;
10+ years of experience in leading high-impact machine learning solutions in a product-centric environment, with demonstrated expertise in generative AI and LLM applications;
5+ years of experience managing high-performing teams of researchers, data scientists, and engineers to deliver machine learning projects and solutions;
Proven experience across the entire research and development lifecycle for LLM-based systems, from concept prototyping to production-ready solutions, with a strong ability to engage with stakeholders to understand business needs and develop tailored solutions;
At least one of the following:
- Published research on large language models, generative AI, or related topics at top-tier conferences (NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, EMNLP, or equivalent);
- Experience architecting and deploying production-grade agentic systems at scale, including sophisticated multi-agent orchestration, tool-use frameworks, and complex reasoning pipelines in enterprise environments;
- Equivalent demonstrable expertise in advancing the state-of-the-art in LLM capabilities through industry innovation;
Exceptional communication skills with the ability to translate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences;
Strong foundation in machine learning and NLP concepts, including deep understanding of transformer architectures, fine-tuning methodologies (LoRA, QLoRA, RLHF, etc.), prompt engineering, and agentic design patterns.

What's in it for you?

Become part of a team that thinks progressively and works collaboratively. We care about seeing each other reach full potential;
Lead cutting-edge work in generative AI and LLMs with access to significant computational resources and the opportunity to shape the future of AI in financial services;
A comprehensive Total Rewards Program including bonuses and flexible benefits, competitive compensation, commissions, and stock options where applicable;
Ability to make a difference and lasting impact from a local-to-global scale.

About RBC Borealis

RBC Borealis is the driving force behind Royal Bank of Canada's AI and data innovation. As part of Canada's largest financial institution, we bring together a team of architects, engineers, scientists, and product experts on a mission to revolutionize finance through world-class research, solutions, and a resilient data platform. With locations across Toronto, Waterloo, Montreal, Calgary, and Vancouver, we're at the forefront of AI research and platform development. With a focus on cutting-edge research in areas like generative AI, large language models, agentic systems, time series forecasting, causal machine learning, and responsible AI, we are seamlessly integrating AI research and data engineering to solve critical challenges in the financial industry. We are building intelligent, scalable, data-driven solutions that will help communities thrive and drive innovation for our customers across the bank.

Inclusion and Equal Opportunity Employment

RBC is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion. We are pleased to consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, protected veterans status, Aboriginal/Native American status or any other legally-protected factors. Disability-related accommodations during the application process are available upon request.

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Additional Job Details

Address:

777 BAY ST, TH 27:TORONTO

City:

Toronto

Country:

Canada

Work hours/week:

37.5

Employment Type:

Full time

Platform:

TECHNOLOGY AND OPERATIONS

Job Type:

Regular

Pay Type:

Salaried

Posted Date:

2026-07-05

Application Deadline:

2026-07-11

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.

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