Principal Engineer

What is the opportunity

As a Principal Engineer within RBCs Innovation & Technology team you will act as a senior technical leader guiding a high-performing team of backend engineers and shaping the technical strategy for next-generation solutions across multiple innovation initiatives. You will provide hands-on architecture and engineering leadership influence enterprise-level decision-making and ensure delivery of secure scalable and compliant backend solutions integrated into RBCs platforms.

What will you do

Technical Leadership & Mentorship

• Lead and grow a team of backend engineers with deep Java expertise and strong

• delivery capabilities.

• Champion engineering excellence by fostering a culture of craftsmanship ownership and continuous improvement.

• Conduct regular performance coaching technical reviews and learning sessions.

• Balance near-term execution with long-term strategic capability building and talent development.

Engineering Execution & Automation

• Enforce best practices in software development including clean code principles

• design patterns and secure coding standards.

• Drive test automation strategies across unit integration and E2E layers using JUnit Mockito REST-assured etc.

• Oversee CI/CD pipelines using tools such as Jenkins GitHub Actions

• Lead containerization efforts with Docker Kubernetes and OpenShift ensuring robust deployment pipelines.

• Define and implement observability standards using Splunk ELK Prometheus and OpenTelemetry.

Architecture & Platform Strategy

• Own and evolve the backend architecture for innovation projects aligning with RBCs enterprise architecture standards.

• Facilitate technical design reviews and present solutions at the Enterprise Architecture Review Board (EARB).

• Identify reusable components and enable cross-project technical synergies across innovation teams.

• Balance innovation velocity with RBCs governance security and regulatory requirements.

AI-Driven Engineering & Developer Productivity

• Champion adoption of agentic AI tools to enhance developer efficiency code

• generation testing and documentation.

• Evaluate and integrate AI copilots (e.g. GitHub Copilot CodeWhisperer Tabnine) and other productivity tools.

• Define RBC-safe usage patterns and best practices for GenAI tools in secure enterprise environments.

• Stay abreast of evolving AI capabilities in software development and share thought leadership internally.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work closely with product managers to define technical requirements that align with business priorities.

• Partner with delivery leads and scrum masters to plan sprints manage backlogs and deliver on roadmaps.

• Collaborate with security compliance privacy and legal to ensure adherence to RBC policies and standards.

• Liaise with DevOps Cloud and SRE teams to optimize platform capabilities and developer experience.

• Facilitate integration and alignment with frontend iOS Android and data science teams.

Platform Vision & Continuous Improvement

• Lead technical debt reduction efforts and modernization of legacy systems.

• Promote platform thinking enable reuse scalability and standardization across

• solutions.

• Introduce internal tools APIs and SDKs to streamline onboarding and delivery across the innovation portfolio.

What do you need to succeed

Must have:

• Expert-level backend development experience with Java (Spring Boot REST APIs multithreading messaging).

• Secondary proficiency in Python and scripting for automation prototyping or AI tools.

• Proven experience building microservices and cloud-native applications on platforms like AWS GCP or Azure.

• Solid knowledge of container orchestration (Docker Kubernetes OpenShift).

• Advanced understanding of CI/CD infrastructure-as-code and GitOps workflows.

• Familiarity with modern identity and access management (e.g. OAuth2 JWT mTLS etc.).

• Experience with SQL and NoSQL databases data modeling and caching strategies.

• Strong experience navigating enterprise governance compliance and regulatory frameworks.

• Exposure to RBC systems such as enterprise authentication (CyberArk ForgeRock) OpenShift clusters and observability platforms is a strong asset.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to influence technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Whats 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.

• Ability to make a difference and lasting impact

• Work in a dynamic collaborative progressive and high-performing team

• Opportunities to do challenging work

Job Skills

Additional Job Details

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

Inclusion and Equal Opportunity Employment

At RBC we believe an inclusive workplace that has diverse perspectives is core to our continued growth as one of the largest and most successful banks in the world. Maintaining a workplace where our employees feel supported to perform at their best effectively collaborate drive innovation and grow professionally helps to bring our Purpose to life and create value for our clients and communities. RBC strives to deliver this through policies and programs intended to foster a workplace based on respect belonging and opportunity for all.