AI Engineer Lead, Application Development

We are hiring an AI Engineer Lead Application DevelopmentReporting To:AVP Application DevelopmentFull-Time/Part- Time:Full-timePosting Date:July 8 2026Closing Date:July 17 2026Hours of Work:8:30 a.m. 5:00 :Office Location: 16.4Toronto ONGreat 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 employmentThe Opportunity : The AI Engineering Lead is responsible for the architecture engineering standards and production readiness of AI Factory solutions that enhance mortgage workflows productivity decision quality and user role provides hands on technical leadership for agentic workflows document and policy intelligence retrieval augmented generation deterministic automation model evaluation observability and secure integration with core mortgage systems. The Lead ensures FNs workflow logic business rules calculations and integration contracts remain independent from external model providers and platforms. How you will contribute:: Lead target architecture for AI enabled workflow automation using Databricks as the governed data evaluation registry and monitoring backbone and Azure as the enterprise foundation for identity security connectivity hosting and reusable solution patterns for DocumentAI PolicyAI retrieval-augmented generation agent/tool integration multi-agent orchestration deterministic rules engines calculation services human review queues exception handling audit evidence and controlled write-back to core designs using Lakeflow Delta Lake bronze silver and gold layers Unity Catalog Vector Search MLflow tracing and evaluation model and prompt registries Databricks Model Serving Azure AI Document Intelligence Azure OpenAI Service Service Bus API Management Key Vault Entra ID Azure Monitor and Log engineering standards for Python TypeScript FastAPI React or Blazor integration surfaces Git based delivery CI/CD automated testing Terraform data quality checks model evaluation prompt governance observability cost monitoring and release production readiness gates for AI use cases including UAT representative test suites confidence thresholds guardrails privacy safeguards access control audit logging rollback planning kill switches incident response runbooks and operational vendor designs reduce throwaway work and ensure code prompts data contracts tests documentation and runbooks can be owned operated and extended by First engineers and partner teams on applied AI architecture LLMOps secure AI delivery production support and reusable patterns that can scale beyond the first residential underwriting use experience you need: Bachelors degree in computer science engineering or a related discipline.8 plus years of progressive technology experience including software engineering solution architecture data engineering machine learning engineering or platform designing and delivering production AI or generative AI capabilities including agents RAG document intelligence model serving prompt lifecycle management evaluation harnesses observability and human in the loop practical experience with Microsoft Azure Databricks or comparable data and AI platforms Python SQL APIs CI/CD infrastructure as code GitHub or Azure DevOps and modern secure software delivery knowledge of MLflow Unity Catalog Lakeflow Delta Lake Vector Search Azure AI Document Intelligence Azure OpenAI Service Azure Service Bus API Management Key Vault Entra ID Azure Monitor and FinOps is strongly to translate architecture choices into product risk cost privacy operational and value tradeoffs for senior in financial services mortgage lending lending operations servicing broker channels third party partnerships or regulated technology environments is :External Customers : Engages implementation partners cloud providers data and AI platform providers and specialist vendors to support solution quality production readiness and knowledge Customers: Partners with Product Engineering Data Security Risk Compliance business operations and technology governance teams to deliver controlled AI capabilities with measurable Environment and Physical Demands Analysis:Office environmentPeriods of high volume with tight timelinesLong periods of stationary position/sittingProlonged periods of repetitive movement (i.e. using a keyboard and mouse)Long periods of time in viewing a computer screenMulti-tasking may include speaking to customers on a telephone call while looking up information on a computer join First NationalCompetitive 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 collaborationSupportive 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 youll join: Founded in 1988 First National is one of Canadas largest non-bank lenders. We provide residential mortgages exclusively through the mortgage broker channel and we are Canadas 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 National supports requests for accommodation from applicants with disabilities; please contact Human Resources at should you need an accommodation at any point in the recruitment process.#FNLOON