Director of Engineering, Innovation

Job Description

What is the opportunity?

The Director of Engineering, Innovation leads RBC's enterprise Innovation team's engineering function within Technology & Operations. This team is responsible for taking emerging technologies from discovery to scaled, secure, production-grade capabilities. This role spans lines of business and partners closely with Enterprise Architecture, Global Security, Data & AI, and Digital channels, stewarding a high-performing engineering team. You will own the end-to-end innovation delivery lifecycle—problem discovery, rapid prototyping, pilot, and hand-off—ensuring alignment with RBC strategy, target-state architecture, and risk and regulatory standards.

What will you do?

• Define and execute on the enterprise Innovation strategy and multi-year roadmap that converts business opportunities into scalable platforms and services.
• Stand up and mature reusable capabilities (e.g., developer experience tooling, experimentation sandboxes, MLOps/GenAI guardrails) that accelerate delivery for product teams.
• Lead the discovery-to-delivery pipeline: ideation, proofs of concept, pilots, and scaled rollouts; establish stage gates, success metrics, and benefit realisation.
• Embed engineering excellence: SDLC and architecture compliance, privacy-by-design and responsible AI.
• Partner with Lines of Business, Enterprise Architecture, Security, Risk, Data/AI, and Digital channels to prioritise demand and ensure alignment.
• Manage vendor and startup ecosystem relationships; evaluate, select, and negotiate with technology partners; drive cost/benefit and outcomes.
• Build, coach, and inspire a diverse team; attract top talent; develop succession and capability plans; foster a culture of experimentation, learning, and delivery.
• Establish OKRs and KPIs (time-to-first‑value, reuse/adoption, reliability, cost efficiency), report progress to senior leadership.
• Oversee budgets, portfolio governance, and program execution to deliver outcomes on time, scope, and budget.
• Ensure compliance with regulatory requirements, model risk and information security controls; manage audits and remediation.

What do you need to succeed?

Must have: 

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science/Engineering (or equivalent).
• Proven experience with rapid prototyping software development skills across a broad range of technologies (7+ years) with 5+ years managing senior engineers.
• Proven track record taking innovations from PoC to production at enterprise scale (high availability, performance, security, observability).
• Highly flexible attitude, as part of a team with a rapidly changing pipeline of work, every day is interesting, but we can’t guarantee any particular tech / task
• Ability to work with minimal supervision or assistance
• Able to communicate with other technical teams to help promote emerging technologies.
• Deep hands-on knowledge of cloud (Azure/AWS/GCP), Kubernetes, microservices, APIs, modern SDLC.
• Experience with data & AI platforms (MLOps, feature stores, model governance) and guardrails for GenAI/LLMs in regulated environments.
• Strong technology strategy, portfolio management, and financial acumen; able to balance experimentation with risk, cost, and value.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.

Nice-to-have

• Graduate degree in a related field.
• Experience in large-scale, global financial services; familiarity with regulatory and model risk frameworks, or equivalent experience running successful products and services in an app-dev setup or startup environment.
• Open-source contributions, patents/publications; experience with venture/startup ecosystems.
• Design Thinking/human-centred design; product management exposure.

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.

• Opportunity to shape RBC’s next-generation engineering platforms and accelerate innovation at enterprise scale.
• Leaders who support your development through coaching, stretch assignments, and sponsorship.
• A comprehensive Total Rewards Program including bonuses and flexible benefits, competitive compensation, and, where applicable, commissions and stock.
• Work in a dynamic, collaborative, progressive, and high‑performing team with the ability to make a lasting impact.
• Opportunities to take on progressively greater accountabilities and do challenging work.
• 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
• A world-class training program in financial services
• Flexible work/life balance options
• Opportunities to do challenging work

Job Skills

Applications Architecture, Commercial Acumen, Information Technology Management, Information Technology Trends, IT Development, Relationship Building, Software Application Development, Working Independently

Additional Job Details

Address:

RBC WATERPARK PLACE, 88 QUEENS QUAY W: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:

2026-03-11

Application Deadline:

2026-07-31

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.