Job Details

- Company: Robots and Pencils
- Position: Principal Data Scientist, Agentic AI Technical Lead
- Location: Canada - Remote

We're looking for a Principal Data Scientist to serve as the technical lead across an entire agentic AI program. This role is ideal for a deeply experienced data science and AI leader who can set direction across many workstreams at once: owning the technical vision, guiding large teams through complex design and delivery challenges, and keeping the full AI/ML program coherent, high quality, and moving at pace.

In this role, you will be the senior technical authority over every agentic AI workstream in the program, spanning a large delivery organization. You'll set architecture and evaluation standards, manage technical delivery across streams, and act as the trusted voice on technical decisions with client leadership. You'll partner closely with executives to define the AI roadmap and make high-stakes decisions that determine how agentic AI scales across the organization.

Why This Role Matters

At Robots & Pencils, we design AI systems for a human world. Our name says it all. Robots and pencils means engineering paired with creativity, because every agent we ship has to work for real people in real workflows. That balance is baked into how we operate.

Every role here contributes directly to that mission. Here, you shape how AI systems integrate into enterprise operations, how teams move at real velocity, and how products create measurable impact for clients and the people they serve. We ship production-ready AI in 30 to 45 days. That pace demands people who take ownership, lead with craft, and care deeply about what they put their name on.

What You'll Do

Craft & Delivery





- Provide technical oversight of all agentic AI workstreams, from problem framing and design through evaluation, deployment, and ongoing operation
- Define the technical strategy and reference architecture for agentic systems, including multi-agent orchestration, tool and function calling, RAG patterns, vector databases, embeddings, and streaming responses
- Manage technical delivery across streams, identifying cross-team dependencies, resolving technical blockers, and keeping quality and velocity high as the program scales
- Set the standard for model development, experimentation, and the path from research to production across the program
- Establish rigorous evaluation frameworks for LLM and agent performance, including quality, safety, hallucination, cost, and latency, so progress is measured and not assumed
- Guide the design of scalable ML platforms, pipelines, and workflow orchestration that support event-driven, asynchronous operations at scale
- Ensure AI reliability, security, and scalability across deployed systems, including observability, monitoring, and debugging in production
- Bring an AI-forward mindset to your daily work, using tools like Claude, Cursor, and other modern AI assistants to ship higher-quality work at pace

Collaboration & Communication





- Serve as the technical face of the AI/ML program to senior client stakeholders, building trust through explicit, honest communication on progress, risk, and tradeoffs
- Co-define the AI roadmap with executive leadership, operating as a peer in strategic technical conversations
- Translate complex technical concepts for executive, engineering, and business audiences, turning depth into decisions others can act on
- Align data science, engineering, product, and business teams so every workstream ladders up to shared priorities and measurable outcomes

Leadership & Influence

- Lead and influence a large, multi-team delivery organization, setting expectations for technical excellence across every stream
- Define and champion data science and AI engineering standards that shape how the program builds, evaluates, and operates AI systems
- Review and elevate the quality of work across teams, giving direct feedback that makes the work better
- Mentor technical leads and senior practitioners, developing the next generation of technical leaders
- Own high-stakes technical decisions with program-wide weight, balancing innovation, risk, and delivery speed
- Drive technical vision, defining not just what gets built, but how agentic AI practice evolves across the program over time

What You'll Bring

- 12+ years of experience in data science and AI/ML, with a record of taking AI systems from research to production at enterprise scale
- Proven track record leading technical delivery across multiple concurrent workstreams or teams, with influence that extends well beyond the immediate team
- Experience leading, or technically overseeing, large mult

📌 Principal Data Scientist, Agentic AI Technical Lead (Canada)
🏢 F5 Remote Jobs
📍 Canada