Director, Data Engineering and AI

Our client in the financial sector is seeking a fulltime Director, Data Engineering & AI to lead the development of its data platform, governance framework, analytics capabilities, and applied AI solutions.

This is a hands-on leadership position, with approximately 80% of the role focused on data/AI architecture, design and engineering and 20% on data strategy and governance. The successful candidate will build an integrated Microsoft-based data environment while developing the organization’s capabilities around AI agents, automation, structured and unstructured data, and responsible AI.

Location: Hybrid 3d/week downtown Toronto

Responsibilities

• Build and lead a unified Microsoft Azure data and reporting platform integrating Dynamics 365, Dataverse, SharePoint, Teams, Microsoft Fabric, and other enterprise data sources.
• Design and implement scalable data architecture, pipelines, integrations, and reporting solutions.
• Establish metadata, taxonomy, content ontology, data quality, governance, and privacy standards using Microsoft Purview.
• Deliver Power BI reporting and self-service analytics capabilities.
• Develop solutions for structured, semi-structured, and unstructured information including documents, images, PDFs, and call recordings.
• Leverage Azure AI Document Intelligence, Azure AI Speech, Azure AI Search, and related Microsoft technologies.
• Build an AI-ready data foundation and deliver applied AI and automation solutions using Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, Azure AI Foundry, and Power Automate.
• Apply AI to use cases including transcription, summarization, sentiment analysis, entity extraction, image understanding, and document understanding.
• Partner with business leaders to identify and prioritize AI agent opportunities.
• Establish practical standards to ensure AI solutions are secure, responsible, scalable, and reliable.
• Lead and develop a small data and AI team as the function grows.

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience in data engineering, data platforms, or related roles within the Microsoft ecosystem.
• Strong hands-on experience with Azure data services, Microsoft Fabric, Azure SQL, Dataverse, and Power BI.
• Experience integrating Dynamics 365 and SharePoint as enterprise data sources.
• Proven experience designing and building cloud data platforms, pipelines, and governance capabilities.
• Experience working with structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data at scale.
• Experience with document processing, OCR, speech-to-text, summarization, sentiment analysis, and/or entity extraction.
• Experience creating AI-ready data foundations and delivering practical AI agent solutions.
• Experience with Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, Azure AI Foundry, Power Automate, or related technologies.
• Experience using open-source technologies within Azure while maintaining enterprise data within the Microsoft environment.
• Strong leadership, problem-solving, communication, and stakeholder-management skills.
• Experience operating in a regulated, privacy-sensitive, financial services, or similar environment is an asset.
• Relevant Microsoft data, AI, machine learning, or cloud certifications are an asset.
• French/English bilingualism is an asset.