Lead Platform Engineer Global AI Platform

As a Lead Platform Engineer you will help design build and deliver the foundational services that enable secure scalable and reusable AI and multi-agentic workflow solutions across the organization. You will work across cloud distributed systems orchestration frameworks vector/memory stores agent workflows and safety/guardrail layers to ensure the platform is secure scalable and enterprise ready.

Position Responsibilities:

• Builds and maintains high-performance fault-tolerant secure and scalable AI platform services and abstractions that support diverse AI solutions with automation-first delivery.
• Designs builds and maintains the technology platforms features and infrastructure including hardware software and network components.
• Build scalable microservices and event-driven pipelines for model training/inference using Akka Streams and Cluster Sharding.
• Integrate AdaptiveML workflows for continuous/online learning feature stores model registries and A/B experimentation.
• Implement AI Foundry components for orchestration feature engineering model deployment and governance.
• Develop reusable reference patterns inner-source components that meet reliability security and compliance standards.
• Implement shared runtimes for multi agent coordination state management memory persistence and messaging.
• Design interoperable APIs/SDKs used by data scientists and developers to build agent powered applications.
• Maintain and improve CI/CD pipelines and developer toolchains for AI services to enable rapid compliant delivery.
• Evaluate emerging AI/ML infrastructure capabilities; prototype and introduce tools that improve developer productivity and reliability.
• Develop and operate scalable backend services supporting high traffic agent interactions retrieval operations and real time execution flows.
• Use cloud native technologies (containers orchestration IaC CI/CD) to deliver reliable cost-efficient services.
• Optimize runtime performance across CPU/GPU/accelerator workloads.
• Monitors and resolves persistent platform issues when surfaced by technical support teams such as bottlenecks connectivity problems and system failures.
• Considers compliance and regulatory requirements throughout the platform lifecycle. Implements security measures such as access controls encryptions and vulnerability assessments when applicable.
• Partners with architects and business leaders to design and build robust platforms across all Global AI Platform capability layers.

Required Qualifications:

• 710 years in software engineering; 3 years leading teams/projects in AI/ML or distributed systems.
• Strong expertise in Akka (Actors Streams Cluster Typed) and event-driven microservices at scale.
• Hands-on experience with AI Foundry and AdaptiveML (or equivalent platforms for model lifecycle orchestration and continuous learning).
• Proficiency in Scala or Java (Akka ecosystem) plus Python for ML tooling.
• Experience with stream processing and data pipelines.
• Solid MLOps background: model registries feature stores CI/CD for ML containerization (Docker) orchestration (Kubernetes).
• Cloud proficiency (AWS/Azure) Terraform or IaC and secrets/IAM.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems observability stack and resilience patterns.
• Strong communication documentation and stakeholder management skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with online learning reinforcement learning or active learning in production.
• Knowledge of responsible AI frameworks model risk management and fairness/bias assessment.
• Performance optimization for low-latency inference; GPU/accelerator utilization.
• Experience in regulated industries (e.g. financial services/insurance) with audit and governance requirements.

When you join our team:

• Well empower you to learn and grow the career you want.
• Well recognize and support you in a flexible environment where well-being and inclusion are more than just words.
• As part of our global team well support you in shaping the future you want to see.

#LI-Hybrid

The role being advertised is an existing vacancy.

About Manulife and John Hancock

Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services provider helping people make their decisions easier and lives better. To learn more about us visit is an Equal Opportunity Employer

At Manulife/John Hancock we embrace our diversity. We strive to attract develop and retain a workforce that is as diverse as the customers we serve and to foster an inclusive work environment that embraces the strength of cultures and individuals. We are committed to fair recruitment retention advancement and compensation and we administer all of our practices and programs without discrimination on the basis of race ancestry place of origin colour ethnic origin citizenship religion or religious beliefs creed sex (including pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions) sexual orientation genetic characteristics veteran status gender identity gender expression age marital status family status disability or any other ground protected by applicable law.

It is our priority to remove barriers to provide equal access to employment. A Human Resources representative will work with applicants who request a reasonable accommodation during the application process. All information shared during the accommodation request process will be stored and used in a manner that is consistent with applicable laws and Manulife/John Hancock policies. To request a reasonable accommodation in the application process contact .

Referenced Salary Location

Salary range is expected to be between

Employees also have the opportunity to participate in incentive programs and earn incentive compensation tied to business and individual performance. The actual salary will vary depending on local market conditions geography and relevant job-related factors such as knowledge skills qualifications experience and education/training. If you are applying for this role outside of the primary location please contact for the salary range for your location.

Manulife offers eligible employees a wide array of customizable benefits including health dental mental health vision short- and long-term disability life and AD&D insurance coverage adoption/surrogacy and wellness benefits and employee/family assistance plans. We also offer eligible employees various retirement savings plans (including pension and a global share ownership plan with employer matching contributions) and financial education and counseling resources. Our generous paid time off program in Canada includes holidays vacation personal and sick days and we offer the full range of statutory leaves of absence. If you are applying for this role in the U.S. please contact for more information about U.S.-specific paid time off provisions.

We use data and analytics technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and automated processing tools to analyze and process the information you provide to us or third parties in the application process. For more information please refer to our personal information collection statement.