{"id":2878688,"url":"https://alion.io/job/sun-life-principal-ai-engineer","title":"Principal AI Engineer","company":{"id":1049263,"name":"Sun Life","domain":"sunlife.ca","url":"https://alion.io/company/sunlife-ca","size_band":"11-50","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workday","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":95,"open_postings":27,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.37,"repost_share":0.037,"time_to_fill_p50_days":16,"computed_at":"2026-10-25T05:49:26Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Waterloo, Canada","Toronto, Canada"],"countries":["CA"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":72000,"max_usd":143000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":24},"experience_years_min":10,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Agile","optional":false},{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Java","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"RAG","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-19T22:13:28Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-19","last_verified_at":"2026-10-23T01:23:47Z","board_verified":false,"closed_at":null,"days_open":5,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":5},"description":"You are as unique as your background, experience and point of view. Here, you’ll be encouraged, empowered and challenged to be your best self. You'll work with dynamic colleagues - experts in their fields - who are eager to share their knowledge with you. Your leaders will inspire and help you reach your potential and soar to new heights. Every day, you'll have new and exciting opportunities to make life brighter for our Clients - who are at the heart of everything we do.\nAt Sun Life, we're driven by our Purpose: helping our Clients achieve lifetime financial security and live healthier lives. Our values shape how we work: caring, authentic, bold, inspiring, and impactful.\nWhen you join Sun Life, you'll work with passionate colleagues and empowering leaders who support your growth and celebrate your contributions, so you can make a meaningful difference in our Clients' lives.\nDiscover how you can make a difference in the lives of individuals, families and communities around the world.\nJob Description:\nYou believe life is about aiming high and making an impact. At Sun Life Financial, we work together, share common values and help each other grow and achieve goals. With roots tracing back to 1865 in Canada, Sun Life Financial has grown to become an established and trusted name in insurance and financial services, with offices and operations in key markets around the world This role presents a unique opportunity to join an innovative team shaping the future for our internal business teams. The successful candidate will play a pivotal role in delivering cutting-edge solutions that enhance our customer experience and operational efficiency.\nRole Summary:\nCanada IT - Platforms and Engineering Domain is looking for a Principal AI Engineer with at least 10 years of engineering experience. This role will be instrumental in driving innovation, implementing cloud capabilities, and building GenAI solutions across our contact centers in Canada, Asia, and the US. This role offers an exciting opportunity to shape the future of our contact center technology and drive innovation at a global scale. The ideal candidate has a passion for cutting-edge technologies and a proven track record of building large-scale, complex software systems.\nWhat you will do: \nPartner with and guide the Enterprise Architect to design and implement solutions to design and implement solutions that align with the platform capabilities roadmap\nDefine and communicate the technical vision and strategy for AI/ML initiatives across the platform\nEstablish and champion a culture of technical excellence and continuous innovation, setting standards that the squad follows\nMentor and develop the engineering squad, fostering technical excellence, code quality standards, and career growth\nDesign, deploy, and manage API infrastructure on AWS platforms\nCreate and maintain technical design artifacts that describe application functionality, solution designs, data models, interfaces, and integrations\nUse and enhance our DevOps practices and tools to enforce software guardrails, increase automation, and help engineers build code faster, at a lower cost, and lower risk\nInfluence and collaborate across multiple teams to ensure AI/ML solutions integrate effectively with broader platform initiatives\nOwn and evolve the end-to-end deployment strategy and CI/CD practices, ensuring scalability and reliability across the squad's deliverables\nHandle model components versioning across dev and prod environments\nSupport infrastructure automation and infrastructure-as-code practices\nActively shape squad adoption of industry advancements, evaluating and recommending emerging technologies and practices\nProvide post-production support for deployed applications, including troubleshooting, performance optimization, and continuous improvement\nWhat you need to succeed: \nBachelor’s degree in computer science or a relevant field\nExtensive experience designing and deploying AI/ML architectures with GenAI models, agentic systems, RAG techniques, and production-scale patterns\nExceptional communication and presentation skills with demonstrated ability to influence technical and executive stakeholders; proven track record of thought leadership in AI/ML\nDeep architectural expertise across multiple languages (Python, Java) and AWS services, with hands-on ability to design scalable solutions\nAdvanced expertise in AI/ML architecture patterns, model lifecycle management, and production-scale deployment strategies\nStrong expertise in AWS services and cloud infrastructure\nAdvanced proficiency with modern DevOps practices, deployment automation, CI/CD pipelines, containerization, and orchestration technologies at scale\nDemonstrated ability to design and establish technical standards for AI/ML infrastructure, security, and operational excellence\nProficiency in API development and management\nProven leadership skills, with the ability to guide agile teams across multiple locations\nStrong problem-solving abilities and analytical skills with a keen eye for detail and the ability to assess alternatives, risks, and benefits\nCommitment to fostering a collaborative, transparent, and trust-based team culture\nDemonstrated success in coaching and mentoring junior engineers in an Agile team setting\nWhat’s in it for you:\nWe’re honoured to be recognized as a 2025 Best Workplaces in Ontario by Great Place to Work® Canada.\nWe are thrilled to be recognized by Excellence Canada with their top-level certification, the Canada Order of Excellence for Mental Health at Work®, for prioritizing employee well-being, fostering a positive work culture, and achieving excellence in mental health.\nWe’re proud to be recognized as a company with a 2023 Most Trusted Executive team by Great Place to Work® Canada.\nWellness programs that support the three pillars of your health - mental, physical, and financial\nThe opportunity to move along a variety of career paths with amazing networking potential.\nAs a hybrid organization, you and your leader use business and Client needs to choose where you work, at home or in the office\nThe Base Pay range is for the primary location for which the job is posted. It may vary depending on the work location of the successful candidate or other factors. In addition to Base Pay, eligible Sun Life employees participate in various incentive plans, payment under which is discretionary and subject to individual and company performance. Certain sales focused roles have sales incentive plans based on individual or group sales results.\nDiversity and inclusion have always been at the core of our values at Sun Life. A diverse workforce with wide perspectives and creative ideas benefits our Clients, the communities where we operate and all of us as colleagues. We welcome applications from qualified individuals from all backgrounds.\nPersons with disabilities who need accommodation in the application process, or those needing job postings in an alternative format, may e-mail a request to .\nWe are proud to be a hybrid organization that offers our employees the choice and flexibility to work from both the office and virtually based on the needs of the business, our Clients and you.\nWe may use artificial intelligence to support candidate sourcing, screening, interview scheduling.\nWe thank all applicants for showing an interest in this position. Only those selected for an interview will be contacted.\nSalary Range:\n100,000/100 000 - 143,000/143 000Job Category:\nIT - Application DevelopmentPosting End Date:\n06/11/2026","description_format":"text","description_chars":7567,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":10,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Wellness"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Wealth Management & Financial Advisors","Asset Management & Funds","Health Insurance & Benefits","Life Insurance & Annuities"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-19T22:13:28Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":74,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":0.9,"p_active":0.827,"p_room":1,"age_days":5,"expected_fill_days":16,"reasons":["conf:52","velocity","win:early","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-25T05:49:26Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/sun-life-principal-ai-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/sun-life-principal-ai-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-25T10:20:57Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"search","counted_by":"address","units_charged":0,"used_today":0,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":null,"resets_at":"2026-10-26T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":1049263},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=1049263"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fsun-life-principal-ai-engineer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fsun-life-principal-ai-engineer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fsun-life-principal-ai-engineer"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/sun-life-principal-ai-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fsun-life-principal-ai-engineer"}]}