Royal Bank of Canada

Lead Data Engineer

Royal Bank of Canada$110K — $130K *
Finance & Insurance
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 7+ years of experience delivering production data pipelines and distributed systems on cloud platforms
  • Hands-on with AWS services like S3, Glue, EMR, EKS, and RDS
  • Proficient in Snowflake, including Streams, Tasks, and optimization techniques
  • Production experience with Spark for large-scale processing and optimization
  • Expertise in medallion architecture patterns and pipeline performance tuning
  • Experience with orchestration tools like Airflow and CI/CD processes
  • Strong understanding of reliability and security best practices including HA/DR

Responsibilities

  • Lead technical direction for the AML Data Foundation Hub on AWS
  • Mentor and coach engineering teams on technical standards and quality
  • Design and build secure, scalable data platforms leveraging AWS and Snowflake
  • Engineer resilient ingestion patterns and orchestrate data pipelines using Airflow
  • Implement Infrastructure-as-Code for repeatable environments and security protocols
  • Design for reliability, disaster recovery, and security measures
  • Translate AML business objectives into technical roadmaps and solutions

Benefits

  • Join a dynamic, collaborative, and high-performing team
  • Opportunities for challenging work with lasting impact
  • Continuous learning and flexibility on projects
  • Supportive leaders focused on employee development
Full Job Description
Job Description

What is the opportunity?

Are you a hands-on data platform engineer who thrives on building cloud-native, high-scale data platforms and enabling teams on top of them? Come join us!

Global Functions Technology (GFT) partners across RBC to deliver transformative platforms and solutions. In Anti-Money Laundering (AML), we are building a new Data Foundation Hub to ingest enterprise data and power analytics and controls using a medallion architecture. As a Lead Data Platform Engineer, you will be a senior individual contributor and technical lead, owning the design and build of our AWS-based data platform and mentoring other engineers.

You will work 70-80% hands-on across AWS (EKS, S3, RDS, EMR, Glue, Airflow), Snowflake, Spark, and dbt to deliver cloud-native, governed, and reliable data systems.

What will you do?
  • Technical leadership and platform ownership
    • Lead the technical direction for the AML Data Foundation Hub on AWS.
    • Mentor and coach engineers (tech design reviews, pair programming, standards), influencing quality and delivery.
  • Cloud-native data platform on AWS (hands-on)
    • Design and build secure, scalable data platforms using AWS S3, Glue, EMR, RDS, and EKS.
    • Define patterns for data lake and warehouse integration (e.g., S3 + Snowflake) including partitioning, storage classes, encryption, and cost optimization.
    • Implement Infrastructure-as-Code (e.g., CloudFormation/Terraform) for repeatable environments, networking, IAM roles/policies, and security baselines.
  • Data engineering and architecture (medallion)
    • Design and build batch and incremental pipelines across Bronze/Silver/Gold layers using Snowflake (Streams, Tasks, Snowpark), Spark on EMR, and dbt.
    • Implement schema evolution, SCD/CDC, partitioning, and performance tuning across both compute and storage (S3, EMR, Snowflake, RDS).
  • Ingestion, orchestration, and observability
    • Engineer resilient, observable ingestion patterns into S3/Snowflake/RDS.
    • Orchestrate pipelines using Airflow (or equivalent) and/or AWS-native services (e.g., event triggers), enforcing SLAs, retries, idempotency, and alerting.
    • Build operational dashboards and alerts for pipeline health, platform capacity, and cost.
  • Reliability, DR, and security
    • Design for high availability, resiliency, and disaster recovery (multi-AZ,/region backup/restore, RPO/RTO-aware architectures).
    • Implement secrets management, encryption, IAM least-privilege, and network security in partnership with Security and Platform/SRE.
    • Participate in incident response and postmortems; drive root-cause fixes and hardening of the platform.
  • DevOps for data and platform enablement
    • Own CI/CD for data and platform components: code review, environment promotion, automated tests (unit, integration, data contract), and versioned artifacts.
    • Partner with Platform/SRE on SLIs/SLOs, capacity planning, and platform standardization across squads.
  • Cross-functional collaboration
    • Translate AML business and control objectives into technical roadmaps, platform capabilities, and reusable patterns.


What do you need to succeed?

Must-have
  • Experience depth: 7+ years delivering production data pipelines and distributed systems at scale on cloud platforms; demonstrated ability to operate as a senior IC and technical lead influencing architecture and quality across a team.
  • AWS platform depth: Hands-on with S3, Glue, EMR, EKS, and RDS; proficiency with IaC (CloudFormation or Terraform), IAM least-privilege design, VPC/networking, and security baselines.
  • Snowflake expertise: Hands-on with Streams, Tasks, Snowpark, and Snowpipe; strong SQL and warehouse design; performance optimization across compute and storage.
  • Distributed processing: Production experience with Spark (PySpark/Scala) for large-scale batch processing, optimization, and tuning.
  • Data engineering and architecture: Medallion architecture patterns (Bronze/Silver/Gold), schema evolution, SCD/CDC, partitioning, and end-to-end pipeline performance tuning.
  • Orchestration and automation: Airflow (or equivalent) for DAGs, SLAs, retries, idempotency, and observability; Git-based workflows and CI/CD for data pipelines (e.g., GitHub Actions/Jenkins).
  • Reliability and security: Designing for HA/DR (multi-AZ, backup/restore, RPO/RTO); encryption, secrets management, and network security in partnership with Platform/SRE.
  • DevOps for data: Ownership of automated testing (unit, integration, data contract), environment promotion, and versioned artifacts.
  • Ways of working: Strong ownership, structured problem-solving, and clear technical communication; experience with incident response and postmortems.


Nice-to-have
  • dbt proficiency: Development, testing, documentation, and deployment of transformations with dbt.
  • Observability: Metrics, tracing, and logging practices across data pipelines and platform components.
  • Security and privacy: OAuth2/OIDC, data masking/tokenization, PII handling, and regulatory awareness in financial services or AML.
  • Regulated domains: Prior experience in financial services or other highly regulated industries.
  • Cloud depth: AWS certifications (e.g., Solutions Architect, Data Engineer) and hands-on familiarity with SageMaker or additional AWS-native data services.
  • Data governance: DQ frameworks, source-to-target reconciliation, lineage tooling, and purge/retention strategies.
  • Hadoop ecosystem: Exposure to legacy Hadoop stack where relevant to integration patterns.


What's in it for you?

As a team, we thrive on the challenge to be our best, encourage progressive thinking for continued growth, and collaborate with one another to deliver trusted advice to help our clients thrive and our communities prosper. We respect and care about all of our team members and support one another in reaching our fullest potential. We work together to make a difference in our communities and to achieve success that is mutual.

This opportunity will provide you with:
  • Work in a dynamic, collaborative, progressive, and high-performing team
  • Opportunities to do challenging work, make a difference and lasting impact
  • Continuous learning and flexibility to work on projects that you are passionate about
  • Leaders who support your development through coaching and managing opportunities


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Job Skills
Big Data Management, Cloud Computing, Database Development, Data Mining, Data Warehousing (DW), ETL Processing, Group Problem Solving, Quality Management, Requirements Analysis

Additional Job Details

Address:

RBC CENTRE, 155 WELLINGTON ST 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:

2026-08-06

Application Deadline:

2026-08-31
Note: Applications will be accepted until 11:59 PM on the day prior to the application deadline date above

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.

About Royal Bank of Canada

Royal Bank of Canada Careers

Join the dynamic team at Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), a global leader in financial services and a company committed to excellence and innovation. At RBC, we offer a wide range of job opportunities that empower professionals to shape their career paths with leadership, diversity training, and continuous growth.

Work You’ll Do

At Royal Bank of Canada, we are not just hiring; we are building a culture of innovation and leadership. Our team members are at the forefront of the financial industry, driving transformation and delivering targeted solutions that meet the evolving needs of our clients and communities.

Explore Job Opportunities and Employment at RBC

Whether you are starting your career or looking to take it to the next level, RBC offers positions that challenge your skills and fuel your ambition. From entry-level positions to leadership roles, our job opportunities span across various functions and regions. Join us and be part of a team that values professional growth and diversity.

Internship and Professional Development

Kickstart your career with an internship at Royal Bank of Canada. Our internships provide invaluable hands-on experience, networking opportunities, and insights into the financial services industry. Interns at RBC gain the skills necessary to excel and are often considered for full-time positions within the company.

Benefits and Culture

At RBC, we prioritize the well-being and satisfaction of our employees. Our benefits package is designed to support our team members at every stage of their life and career. RBC’s culture is built on a foundation of respect, integrity, and responsibility, fostering an environment where everyone can thrive.

Career Growth and Innovation

We believe in nurturing the potential of our employees through continuous learning and career development programs. At RBC, you will find endless opportunities to grow professionally through on-the-job experiences, formal training programs, and leadership development initiatives. Our commitment to innovation means we are constantly seeking out new ideas and perspectives, making RBC a perfect place for those who aim to lead and innovate.

Diversity and Inclusion

Diversity is our strength. At Royal Bank of Canada, we are committed to building an inclusive workplace where every employee feels valued and respected. Our diversity training programs are designed to educate and inspire, creating a more inclusive and equitable workplace.

Join Our Team

Search open positions that match your skills and interests. We look for passionate, curious, creative, and solution-driven team players. Start your journey with RBC today and be part of a world-class team known for its commitment to client service, community involvement, and innovation.

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Learn more about Royal Bank of Canada
Size
86,007 employees
Market Cap
$130.3 billion
Industry
5 Year Trend
+8.7%
NASDAQ

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