Director, Lead AI Engineer, Office of Chief Investment Officer - SLC Management - Sun Life Financial

Director, Lead AI Engineer, Office of Chief Investment Officer - SLC Management

Location: Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts / Toronto, Ontario

Time Type: Full time

Posted On: Posted 4 Days Ago

Job Requisition ID: JR00103260

SLC Management is a growing global asset management firm providing innovative and diversified investment solutions to institutional investors. We are breaking new ground with a full spectrum of solutions for a growing institutional client base of more than 1300 organizations. Our history of organic and strategic growth reflects this commitment with over CA$374/US$283 billion in assets under management (AUM). As a subsidiary of Sun Life, we are aligned with one of the world’s leading financial services companies, and benefit from the stability and strength of that relationship.

We are a performance-driven organization with a deliberate focus on fostering a development-focused, inclusive culture revolving around our Core Values of being client obsessed, valuing each other, acting with speed, and having an owner’s mindset. As part of our team, you play a role in fulfilling our purpose and making a difference. We offer a rewarding work environment that is filled with opportunity for growth where you will be empowered to meet the challenges of a highly competitive landscape.

Job Description:

The Director, Lead AI Engineer will work in partnership with the Office of the CIO, and the SLC Digital Solutions & Innovations team to collaborate and deliver on advanced solutions for SLC Management initiatives.

Reporting to the Managing Director, Chief of Staff, Office of the CIO & the Senior Director, Data Platform Technology Owner, the Lead AI Engineer will experiment with various AI and data engineering capabilities that can drive business outcomes and enhance customer experience.

You will work with various functions within SLC to identify opportunities and be responsible for developing solutions that leverage large language models (LLMs) and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines. You will work closely with other technical staff (Data & Cloud Engineering) to test and compare different LLMs and address associated challenges like speed and cost optimization. You will also be expected to use traditional AI modeling techniques, such as regression, classification, clustering, and anomaly detection, to complement your generative models and provide insights and recommendations.

What You Will Do:

• Design, develop and deploy generative AI solutions. Implement RAG pipelines to enhance information retrieval and generation tasks.
• Develop a deep understanding of the differences between prompting and training LLMs and apply this knowledge to optimize model performance.
• Test and evaluate various LLMs (e.g., OpenAI, Llama, Claude) to identify the best fit for specific use cases.
• Analyze and address issues related to model speed, performance, and cost-effectiveness.
• Document and present your AI solutions, including the methodology, results, and limitations, to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to implement and maintain robust solutions & pipelines, adhering to best practices and standards of SLC.
• Collaborate with the data team to research and evaluate emerging AI techniques and frameworks and adapt them to our business needs and data sources.
• Provide technical leadership to junior team members, contributing to the growth and development of AI within SLC.
• Build & grow capability and the practice of advanced analytics across the firm in terms of tools, techniques, models, frameworks, standards, and skills.
• Work in collaboration with teams across SLC Management and SLF Corporate.

What You Will Need to Succeed:

• 8+ years of professional hands-on development experience building data solutions using cloud native technologies. Cloud (AWS, Azure), Database/warehouses (Snowflake, Oracle, etc).
• 5+ years using Python, especially machine learning frameworks and libraries.
• Proven experience building generative AI solutions, including RAG optimizations.
• Strong understanding of prompting vs. training for large language models.
• Experience in data engineering, such as data ingestion, processing, storage, & visualization.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, and ability to work in a team.
• Knowledge of the asset management industry and its applications is a plus.

Why SLC Management?

• Opportunity to work for a growing global institutional asset manager.
• Excellent benefits and wellness programs to support the three pillars of your well-being – mental, physical, and financial – including generous vacation and sick time, market-leading paid family, parental and adoption leave, a partially-paid sabbatical program, medical plans, company paid life and AD&D insurance as well as disability programs and more.
• Retirement and Stock Purchase programs to help build and enhance your future financial security including a 401(k) plan with an employer-paid match as well as an employer-funded retirement account.
• A flexible work environment with a friendly, caring, collaborative and inclusive culture focused on career growth development.
• The opportunity to move along a variety of career paths with amazing networking potential.
• Award winning workplace culture - Great Place to Work Certified in Canada and the U.S., “Best Places to Work in Money Management” by Pension & Investments, “Top 10” employer by the Boston Globe's “Top Places to Work” two years running.

SLC Management is a regulated business, and this means that there are certain financial reporting and trading preclearance requirements for all employees. Successful candidates will be required to declare personal investment accounts and securities investments as well as seek preclearance on future transactions including those of household members.

Job Category: Advanced Analytics

We consider various factors in determining actual pay including your skills, qualifications, and experience. In addition to salary, this position is eligible for incentive awards based on individual and business performance as well as a broad range of competitive benefits.

We are committed to fostering a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment, where all employees feel valued, respected, and supported. We are dedicated to building a diverse workforce offering wide perspectives and creative ideas that benefit our clients, teams and the communities where we operate. Research shows that women and underrepresented groups tend to apply only if they meet 100% of the criteria. We encourage applications from qualified individuals from all backgrounds even if they don’t meet every criteria in the job description.

We will make reasonable accommodations to known physical or mental limitations. Persons with disabilities who need accommodation in the application process or those needing job postings in an alternative format may e-mail a request to thebrightside@sunlife.com.

We thank all applicants for showing an interest in this position. Only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.