Forward Deployed AI Engineer

About AGF Management Limited: Founded in 1957, AGF Management Limited (AGF) is an independent and globally diverse asset management firm. Our companies deliver excellence in investing in the public and private markets through three business lines: AGF Investments, AGF Capital Partners and AGF Private Wealth. AGF brings a disciplined approach, focused on incorporating sound, responsible and sustainable corporate practices. The firm’s collective investment expertise, driven by its fundamental, quantitative and alternative investing capabilities, extends globally to a wide range of clients, from financial advisors and their clients to high-net worth and institutional investors including pension plans, corporate plans, sovereign wealth funds, endowments and foundations. Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, AGF has investment operations and client servicing teams on the ground in North America and Europe. AGF serves more than 820,000 investors. AGF trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol AGF.B. About the Team: AGF is building an enterprise-wide Artificial Intelligence capability to improve client outcomes, investment performance, operational effectiveness, and employee productivity. Through its AI Centre of Expertise (AI CoE), AGF is establishing the governance, technology, talent, and operating model needed to responsibly scale AI across the organization. As part of this strategy, AGF is creating a team of Forward Deployed AI Engineers who will work at the intersection of business strategy, technology, and AI innovation to identify, build, and deploy solutions that create measurable business value. Initial priorities will focus on Investment Management and Distribution, with expansion across all business functions over time. About the Role: The Forward Deployed AI Engineer is a hands-on technical expert responsible for partnering directly with business stakeholders to identify opportunities, design solutions, and build production-grade AI applications that solve real business problems. This role combines the technical depth of an experienced AI engineer with the business acumen of a consultant. You will work closely with portfolio managers, investment professionals, distribution teams, operations leaders, and other subject matter experts to understand their challenges and rapidly deliver AI-enabled solutions that drive growth, increase productivity, improve decision-making, and enhance client outcomes. Unlike traditional software development roles, Forward Deployed AI Engineers spend significant time engaging with business teams, understanding workflows, and translating business opportunities into working solutions. You will own the delivery lifecycle from discovery and design through implementation, deployment, adoption, and ongoing support. This is an individual contributor role within AGF's AI Centre of Expertise and is intended for a highly motivated, entrepreneurial engineer who thrives in ambiguous environments and enjoys building new capabilities from the ground up. Why Join AGF? This is a unique opportunity to help shape AGF's AI future from the ground up. As a founding member of the Forward Deployed AI Engineering team, you will work directly with senior leaders across the organization to solve high-value business challenges using emerging AI technologies. You will have the opportunity to influence strategy, drive business outcomes, build enterprise-scale solutions, and help establish AI as a core capability across AGF. Your Responsibilities: Business Engagement & Opportunity Identification • Partner directly with business leaders and subject matter experts to identify opportunities for AI-enabled transformation. • Facilitate discovery sessions, workshops, and requirements gathering activities. • Analyze business processes, workflows, and decision-making activities to identify opportunities for automation, augmentation, and optimization. • Evaluate opportunities based on business value, strategic alignment, implementation feasibility, and risk. • Translate complex business challenges into scalable and practical AI solutions. • Act as a trusted advisor to stakeholders on AI capabilities, opportunities, and implementation considerations. AI Solution Design & Engineering • Design, develop, test, deploy, and support production-grade AI solutions. • Build AI agents, Copilot solutions, intelligent workflows, automation solutions, and knowledge retrieval systems. • Develop Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) solutions leveraging enterprise content and data. • Integrate AI solutions with enterprise applications, APIs, databases, document repositories, and third-party platforms. • Develop reusable frameworks, components, and patterns that accelerate future AI solution delivery. • Contribute to AI engineering standards, best practices, and technical guidance across the organization. Product Delivery & Operational Ownership • Deliver solutions from concept through production deployment. • Participate in ongoing support, monitoring, troubleshooting, and enhancement of deployed solutions. • Ensure solutions are reliable, secure, scalable, maintainable, and aligned with enterprise standards. • Monitor solution adoption, performance, business outcomes, and user satisfaction. • Continuously improve deployed solutions based on business feedback and emerging capabilities. Governance, Risk & Compliance • Ensure all solutions adhere to AGF's AI governance, security, privacy, compliance, and risk management frameworks. • Participate in architecture reviews, risk assessments, and solution governance processes. • Work closely with Risk, Compliance, Legal, Privacy, Cybersecurity, Internal Audit, and Technology teams as required. • Support responsible AI practices throughout the solution lifecycle. Your Qualifications: • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Data Science, Information Technology, or a related discipline. • Master's degree considered an asset. • Minimum 7 years of experience in software engineering, AI engineering, solution architecture, data engineering, or technology consulting. • Minimum 3 years of experience developing AI, machine learning, automation, or generative AI solutions. • Demonstrated experience working directly with business stakeholders to identify, design, and deliver technology solutions. • Experience delivering solutions from concept through production implementation and support. • Experience operating in fast-paced environments with evolving priorities. • Financial services, investment management, wealth management, or capital markets experience is considered a strong asset. Technical Skills: Required • Strong software engineering skills with hands-on development experience. • Advanced Python programming. • AI agent design and development. • Prompt engineering and orchestration techniques. • Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architectures. • API development and systems integration. • GitHub and DevOps practices. • Enterprise data integration. • Modern software development lifecycle practices. Preferred • Azure AI Foundry. • Azure Cloud. • Azure OpenAI Services. • Microsoft Copilot Studio. • Microsoft Power Platform. • Databricks. • Vector databases. • Knowledge graph technologies. • Machine learning and advanced analytics experience. • Cloud-native application development. • Experience working with investment, research, distribution, or client servicing workflows. Leadership Competencies: • Exceptional problem-solving and analytical abilities. • Strong stakeholder management and relationship-building skills. • Ability to influence and drive outcomes without direct authority. • Strong communication and presentation skills. • Product-oriented mindset focused on measurable business outcomes. • Curiosity, adaptability, and a passion for continuous learning. • Ability to operate effectively in ambiguous and rapidly evolving environm