Job DescriptionDirector, Innovation EngineeringBuilding RBC's Future: A Strategic Technology Investment Role
What Makes This Role Different?This is not a traditional Director of Engineering role focused on maintaining existing applications or delivering predictable BAU work. This is a strategic technology investment position accountable for:
- Building enterprise-wide platforms and capabilities that don't yet exist-not running existing systems
- De-risking emerging technologies (quantum, quantum-hybrid solutions, GenAI, ML platforms) and making them production-ready before product teams need them
- Operating as RBC's internal innovation catalyst-bridging the gap between startup agility and enterprise scale
- Creating reusable assets that accelerate delivery across all lines of business, multiplying engineering productivity bank-wide
Success in this role is measured differently:
Time-to-market acceleration across the enterprise, platform adoption rates, cost avoidance through reusable capabilities, and speed of innovation-to-production-not application uptime or feature velocity.
What Is the Opportunity?RBC is making a deliberate investment in innovation infrastructure-the foundational capabilities that allow the bank to experiment faster, scale smarter, and compete with digital-native fintechs.
The Director of Engineering, Innovation leads RBC's enterprise Innovation Engineering function within Technology and Operations. This role requires startup thinking at enterprise scale-the ability to move fast, experiment, fail forward, and pivot, while ensuring everything you build meets the bank's rigorous standards for security, compliance, and resilience.
What Will You Do?Strategic Platform Leadership
- Define and execute the enterprise Innovation Engineering strategy and multi-year roadmap, converting business opportunities into scalable platforms, services, and capabilities
- Stand up net-new, reusable capabilities (e.g., quantum-hybrid solution frameworks, GenAI guardrails, developer experience tooling, experimentation sandboxes, MCP/event-streaming platforms) that accelerate delivery for product teams bank-wide
- Establish the discovery-to-delivery pipeline with clear stage gates: ideation 14 proof of concept 14 pilot 14 production rollout 14 adoption & scaling; define success metrics and benefit realization frameworks
Cross-Enterprise Orchestration
- Partner with all Lines of Business, Enterprise Architecture, Global Security, Risk, AI Group, and Digital channels to surface demand, prioritize innovation investments, and ensure alignment to target-state architecture
- Act as RBC's innovation broker-translating emerging tech trends (GenAI, distributed ledger technology, open banking, quantum) into concrete opportunities and socializing new capabilities across the bank to drive adoption
Technology Evaluation & Partnerships
- Evaluate cutting-edge technologies from startups, vendors, and academic institutions; assess technical feasibility, security implications, and build-vs-buy trade-offs
- Stay ahead of the curve-attend conferences, engage with open-source communities, and identify emerging trends early
Engineering Excellence & Risk
- Embed engineering excellence into every innovation: SDLC compliance, architecture patterns, privacy-by-design, responsible AI, and security-first development
- Ensure compliance with regulatory requirements, model risk frameworks, and information security controls; manage audits, remediation, and control attestation
Team Building & Culture
- Build, coach, and inspire a high-performing, diverse team of senior engineers and architects who think like founders but operate at enterprise scale
- Attract top talent from startups, scale-ups, and leading tech companies-people who have built 0-to-1 products and want to apply that mindset in a bank
- Foster a culture of experimentation, learning, and intelligent failure-where teams ship fast, measure, iterate, and aren't afraid to kill ideas that don't work
Measurement & Accountability
- Establish OKRs and KPIs specific to innovation: time-to-first-value, platform adoption/reuse rates, experimentation velocity, cost efficiency, reliability, and downstream productivity gains
- Report progress to senior leadership with a portfolio governance lens-tracking investments, ROI, and strategic alignment
- Oversee budgets and program execution to deliver outcomes on time, on scope, and on budget
What Do You Need to Succeed?Must-HaveStartup or 0-to-1 Product ExperienceYou've built something new from the ground up-ideally in a startup, scale-up, or high-growth environment where you wore multiple hats, moved fast, and shipped products customers loved. You understand what it takes to go from idea to production quickly while managing uncertainty.
Enterprise-Scale Production EngineeringYou've taken innovations from PoC to production at scale in complex, regulated, or high-stakes environments (financial services, healthcare, critical infrastructure). You know how to balance speed with high availability, performance, security, observability, and compliance.
Deep Technical Fluency- Cloud platforms (Azure/AWS/GCP), Kubernetes, microservices, APIs, MCPs, event streaming
- Data & AI platforms: ML Ops, feature stores, model governance, LLM/GenAI deployment and guardrails
- Modern SDLC: CI/CD, GitOps, SRE, platform engineering, developer experience tooling
- An interest in new technologies and the initiative to try new frameworks out for yourself e.g., early quantum software, or building MCP tooling
Strategic & Financial AcumenYou think like a Chief Technology Strategist-balancing experimentation with risk, cost, and value. You can build roadmaps, prioritize a portfolio of bets, and articulate ROI to executives.
Cross-Functional LeadershipYou've led across silos-partnering with product, architecture, security, risk, data science, and business stakeholders. You're equally comfortable presenting to a CTO and pair-programming with an engineer.
People Leadership7+ years of progressive leadership in software/platform engineering with 5+ years managing senior engineers and architects. You've built teams from scratch, attracted top talent, and developed future leaders.
EducationBachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent.
Nice-to-Have- Graduate degree in a related field (Computer Science, Engineering, Business)
- Financial services experience in large-scale, global organizations; familiarity with regulatory frameworks (OSFI, model risk, SOX, privacy laws)
- Startup ecosystem exposure: worked at or with startups, VCs, accelerators; understand how to evaluate early-stage tech and de-risk partnerships
- Open-source contributions, patents, or publications-evidence of thought leadership and technical depth
- Design Thinking / human-centered design expertise; product management exposure
- Track record of platform adoption: you've built tools or platforms that were voluntarily adopted by hundreds of engineers
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
- A world-class training program in financial services
- Opportunities to do challenging work.
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Job SkillsApplication Development, Application Maintenance, Applications Architecture, Commercial Acumen, Enterprise Application Delivery, Information Technology Management, Information Technology Trends, Programming Languages, System Applications
Additional Job DetailsAddress:RBC WATERPARK PLACE, 88 QUEENS QUAY W:TORONTO
City:Toronto
Country:Canada
Work hours/week:37.5
Employment Type:Full time
Platform:HUMAN RESOURCES & BMCC
Job Type:Regular
Pay Type:Salaried
Posted Date:2026-07-20
Application Deadline:2026-08-21
Note: Applications will be accepted until 11:59 PM on the day prior to the application deadline date above
