BI Architect (AI/ML Architect)

Company: CGICDepartment: Business IntelligenceEmployment Type: Regular Full-TimeWork Model: HybridLanguage: English is required, French is an asset. This position primarily works with majority non-francophone groups, and teams located outside of Québec, and requires proficiency in English. The essential non-French duties are not assignable to adjacent or other team members. The Opportunity:We are a leading Canadian financial services co-operative committed to being a catalyst for a sustainable and resilient society and our team is essential to deliver on this strategy. That’s why we prioritize our people, to ensure we provide a strong culture and development opportunities which enables our team to thrive and to live our purpose. The best part is that you will work with people that care passionately about you, our clients, and our communities.Our Business Intelligence team empowers decision making using leading edge science and analytics. We strive to deliver a single version of truth, by providing our business partners with access to comprehensive data and valuable insights to help our organization achieve operational excellence.We are looking for a highly skilled and innovative AI/ML Architect to lead the design and modernization of our AI/ML landscape. The ideal candidate will have a deep understanding of machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies, as well as practical experience in deploying scalable AI/ML solutions in a production environment utilizing MLOps techniques. You will play a pivotal role in shaping our AI/ML strategy, architecting robust systems, and guiding our engineering and data science teams in the development of cutting-edge AI/ML models.As a BI Architect focused on AI/ML, you will lead solution design and architecture work for advanced analytics projects, providing technical guidance in the development of scalable and reusable integration, extraction, and transformation processes between the operational systems, the enterprise data warehouse/lakehouse, the advanced analytics workloads and their predictive and prescriptive models, and the existing reporting tools on-premises and in the cloud. You will also act as an owner of core parts of the data and analytics reference architecture, facilitating discussions, taking decisions, influencing senior stakeholders, ensuring alignment with corporate strategy, promoting its adoption, and giving direction to other architects, data scientists and data engineers. You will also own and promote the architecture and solution design artifacts, such as standards, guidelines, best practices, data frameworks and design patterns.How you will create impact:  Take responsibility for defining, maintaining, and promoting the reference architecture. Proactively lead discussions, take decisions, influence, and give direction to other architects, acting as an owner of core parts of the reference architecture.Understand corporate strategies and goals to strive for alignment of the AI/ML capabilities and ensure that the data and analytics environment and architecture can support the corporate strategy and goals.Actively research AI/ML leading-edge industry solutions, design patterns, tools and processes and support their introduction to the AI/ML ecosystem, offering guidance and subject matter expertise. Define, create, maintain, publish and promote architecture and solution design standards, guidelines and other supporting artifacts on topics such as analytics integration, data architecture, data modeling, data quality, data retention, data aging, security, reconciliation, advanced analytics solutions, and predictive modelling operationalization. Take responsibility and ensure the content is relevant and always up to date, continuously reviewing or retiring existing content.Effectively communicate and influence different audiences (technical and business) with varying levels of seniority and with different sizes, both physically and virtually.Mentor project developers about technology stacks related to their projects. Identify, coach, and empower individual talents within the project delivery teams to develop architecture and solution design skills.Influence and ensure the project's data scientists, data developers, and data engineers adopt the right design practices, technical libraries, and standards and have an effective testing strategy. Translate the designed solution to technical designers and developers, reviewing and approving the proposed solution and optimizing it when required. How you will succeed:  You have an innovative mindset to improve operational efficiencies and ability to influence change, with a primary focus on client needs.You use critical thinking skills to recognize assumptions, evaluate arguments, draw conclusions and proactively propose solutions.You have strong communication skills to clearly convey messages and explore diverse points of view.You build trusting relationships and provide guidance to support the development of colleagues.  To join our team: You have 10 years of relevant experience in data & analytics or another relevant domain.You have 5+ years as an AI/ML Architect or in a similar role, with a portfolio of deployed AI/ML projects.You have a University Degree in Business Intelligence, Computer Science / Engineering, Actuarial Science, Mathematics, Statistics or equivalent technical experience.You have strong/excellent knowledge and understanding of: machine learning algorithms, deep learning architectures, data modeling techniques, programing/tools, data warehouse/lakehouse, data management, research, architecture/design, DevOps/MLOps.You can lead others to solve complex problems; uses analytical thinking, tools, and judgement to identify innovative solutions.Experience with the following technologies is required: R, Python, Apache Spark, Azure Synapse and Databricks Platform.Experience with the following technologies is an asset: MLflow, Pyspark, SparkR, Azure Machine Learning Studio, Kubernetes, Posit/RStudio, Generative AI, LLM design patterns: Prompt Engineering, Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG).The following certifications are an asset: Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Engineer Associate, Azure Solutions Architect Expert, Azure Data Fundamentals, Azure Data Scientist AssociateDatabricks Certified: Data Engineer Associate, Data Engineer Professional, Machine Learning Associate, Machine Learning Professional, Databricks Fundamentals, Azure Databricks Platform Architect, Professional Data Scientist, Associate Developer for Apache Spark What you need to know:  You will be subject to a Background check as a condition of employment, in the event you are the successful candidate. What’s in it for you? Training and development opportunities to grow your career. Flexible work options and paid time off to support your personal and family needs. A holistic approach to your well-being, with physical and mental health programs and a supportive workplace culture. Paid volunteer days to give back to your community. In addition to our competitive salary and incentive programs, eligible employees also benefit from a comprehensive total rewards package including group retirement savings plans, pension and benefits (, health and wellness, dental, disability and life coverage), mental health support and an employee assistance program.