We are hiring an Applied AI Platform Engineer, Application Development
Reporting To: AVP, Application Development
Full-Time/Part- Time: Full-time
Posting Date: July 22, 2026
Closing Date: August 7, 2026
Hours of Work: 8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Grade: 14.4
Office Location: Toronto, ON Great location! Steps away from the main public transit station
What we offer:
Highly competitive compensation package which includes, base salary, bonus, benefits, and career advancement opportunities!
- Eligibility for benefits is dependent on the terms of employment
The Opportunity:
The Applied AI Platform Engineer is accountable for building, integrating, testing, deploying, monitoring, and supporting AI Factory platform capabilities that turn AI concepts and prototypes into reliable production services.
This is a hands-on engineering role focused on data pipelines, agent tooling, API integration, model and prompt deployment, evaluation harnesses, observability, CI/CD, infrastructure automation, access controls, cost monitoring, and production support across Databricks, Azure, Python, SQL, and enterprise delivery tooling.
How you will contribute:
- Build and operate applied AI platform components, including Lakeflow ingestion jobs, Delta Lake bronze, silver, and gold tables, Unity Catalog governed schemas, vector indexes, document processing pipelines, agent tools, APIs, evaluation jobs, and deployment automation.
- Implement AI enabled workflows using Python, SQL, FastAPI, Databricks Jobs or notebooks, MLflow, Model Serving, Vector Search, Azure AI Document Intelligence, Azure OpenAI Service through approved gateway patterns, and agent frameworks such as Mosaic AI SDK, LangGraph, LangChain, or MCP where appropriate.
- Create and maintain CI/CD pipelines, Terraform modules, automated tests, data quality checks, environment promotion controls, Git based workflows, release packages, and operational runbooks.
- Implement observability for AI workloads, including MLflow traces, evaluation results, model and prompt versions, latency, quality, drift, token and platform cost, error handling, alerting, dashboards, and Azure Monitor or Log Analytics integration.
- Implement production controls, including Entra ID, RBAC, Key Vault secrets, private connectivity, logging, audit evidence, PII handling, retention, confidence thresholds, exception routing, feedback capture, rollback support, and kill switch capability.
- Integrate AI services with core mortgage platforms, SQL Server sources, document repositories, broker communication channels, event backbones such as Azure Service Bus, and user surfaces such as React, Blazor, or other enterprise interfaces.
- Support UAT, parallel runs, defect triage, performance validation, incident analysis, root cause analysis, and controlled handoff from implementation partners to FN support teams.
- Refactor vendor delivered or prototype components into modular, testable, documented, supportable services that First National can maintain and extend.
The experience you need:
- Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering or a related discipline.
- 5 plus years of progressive software engineering, data engineering, platform engineering, cloud engineering, machine learning engineering, or LLMOps experience.
- Strong hands-on experience with Python, SQL, APIs, CI/CD, automated testing, Git based development, cloud services, data platform engineering, and production support.
- Experience with Microsoft Azure, Databricks or comparable platforms, MLflow or similar tooling, model serving, vector search, prompt management, observability, and infrastructure automation is strongly preferred.
- Working knowledge of RAG, document intelligence, agentic workflows, prompt testing, evaluation methods, confidence scoring, red teaming, guardrails, human review controls, and model or prompt drift monitoring.
- Ability to build reliable pipelines, services, jobs, and integrations with attention to performance, cost, resilience, security, privacy, data governance, and operational support.
- Experience supporting UAT, production releases, incident triage, monitoring, root cause analysis, and runbook based operational handoff.
- Experience in financial services, mortgage lending, lending operations, servicing, broker channels, third party partnerships, or regulated technology environments is preferred.
Relationships:
External Customers: Works with implementation partners, cloud providers, data and AI platform providers, and specialist vendors on engineering delivery, integration, monitoring, and handoff.
Internal Customers: Partners with the AI Engineering Lead, product teams, engineering teams, data teams, information security, risk and control stakeholders, and business users to turn AI use cases into reliable production capabilities.
Working Environment and Physical Demands Analysis:
- Office environment
- Periods of high volume with tight timelines
- Long periods of stationary position/sitting
- Prolonged periods of repetitive movement (i.e. using a keyboard and mouse)
- Long periods of time in viewing a computer screen
- Multi-tasking may include speaking to customers on a telephone call while looking up information on a computer program.
Why join First National?
- Competitive Compensation
- Comprehensive benefits program (i.e., Health Spending Account, Maternity and Parental Leave Top Up)
- Extensive training programs to set our employees up for success
- Modern office environment conducive to collaboration
- Supportive teamwork culture
- Opportunities to give back to the communities and work through events focused on a variety of charities
- Ongoing social events throughout the year
The team you’ll join:
Founded in 1988, First National is one of Canada’s largest non-bank lenders. We provide residential mortgages exclusively through the mortgage broker channel and we are Canada’s largest commercial mortgage lender.
First National has been consistently recognized as a great place to work and we are proud that our employee engagement feedback is higher than our industry partners.
We would like to thank all applications for their interest in this existing vacancy, but only candidates selected for an interview will be contacted.
Artificial Intelligence is not used in our recruitment or hiring process for this role.
First National is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and is committed to diversity and inclusion regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, age, gender identity, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation and any other category protected by law.
First National supports requests for accommodation from applicants with disabilities; please contact Human Resources at
[email protected] should you need an accommodation at any point in the recruitment process.
#FNLOON
