Data Scientist (12-month contract)

Job Summary

Job Description

What is the opportunity?

The Global Economic Sanctions (GES) team is a unique function within the Financial Crimes that provides support to Global Financial Crimes teams and Business Units at an enterprise level for Canadian, US, UK, EU/Europe, APAC and Caribbean economic sanctions.

We are seeking an experienced and technically skilled Data Scientist to facilitate the design, execution, and oversight of data-driven processes supporting our Sanctions Risk Assessment framework. This role will assist the end-to-end automation, aggregation, calculation and data quality check process, ensuring alignment with policy requirements and risk methodologies, while managing complex stakeholder interactions across risk, technology, and business units.

This role combines technical skills, risk acumen, process oversight, and strong interpersonal skills to ensure the end-to-end execution of the risk assessment data-driven process is robust, efficient, and aligned to enterprise expectations.

What will you do?

• Data Requirements & Analysis

- Translate sanctions risk methodology into structured data pull and processing requirements.

- Assess data availability across assessment units to drive accurate and tailored data sourcing.

- Collaborate with data owners and SMEs to define, validate, and refine source data elements and extraction logic.

• Automation of Risk Tools

- Drive the automation of Control Self-Assessment (CSA), Qualitative Risk Questionnaires (QRQ), and Product & Service Questionnaires (PSQ).

- Enhance and integrate scripts to streamline execution, reduce manual effort, and improve accuracy.

- Ensure automation reflects evolving requirements and maintains alignment with policy and methodology changes.

• Configuration & Tailoring

- Execute threshold tables and configuration files, tailoring logic to reflect assessment unit-specific requirements.

- Ensure changes are fully documented, reviewed, and regression tested.

Aggregation & Calculation Logic

- Develop and maintain robust scripts to perform quantitative data aggregation, scoring, and risk calculations at scale.

- Ensure accuracy, performance, and auditability of aggregation and calculation processes.

• Data Quality Automation & Outlier Analysis

- Design and implement automated data quality checks to identify inconsistencies, discrepancies, or misalignments in critical data elements.

- Highlight anomalies or indicators of elevated risk requiring further investigation and/or local engagement.

- Review script outputs to verify that logic aligns with requirement documentation and meets defined risk objectives.

- Conduct detailed analysis and validation to ensure outcomes support the risk methodology.

• End-to-End Process Management

- Manage the entire lifecycle of data sourcing, transformation, automation, and output validation for sanctions risk assessment.

- Document, monitor, and enhance each stage of the process to ensure performance, resilience, and compliance.

• Leadership & Stakeholder Management

- Act as the key point of contact for senior stakeholders in Risk, Compliance, -Technology, Data Governance, and the Business.

- Communicate complex technical issues in a clear, structured way to non-technical audiences.

- Navigate and lead difficult conversations to resolve disagreements, clarify responsibilities, or address delivery gaps.

- Prioritize competing demands and manage multiple timelines effectively.

- Assist in other governance responsibilities, as required, including

- Produce sanctions dashboard and management reporting on sanctions compliance program.

- Assist in audit, testing or regulatory exams related to sanctions.

- Assist in tracking and closing sanctions-related issues.

- Assess and review sanctions policies and procedures developed by global business units and/or local compliance teams; review and recommend amendments to the enterprise sanctions policy based on knowledge of the global sanctions environment.

- Develop and update sanctions related training.

Complete other ad-hoc assignments supporting GES program oversight team.

What do you need to succeed?

Must-have

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Data Science, Computer Science, Risk Management, Statistics, or related field. 3+ years of experience in data analysis, process automation, or technology roles, preferably in financial services or compliance.

• Strong coding skills in Python (e.g. Pandas), with experience automating data pipelines and risk tools.

• Experience with risk frameworks, controls, or regulatory reporting.

• Demonstrated ability to manage end-to-end project lifecycle from design to deployment and monitoring.

• Excellent writing and analysis skills, particularly in script documentation and whitepaper.

Nice-to-have

• Familiarity with sanctions compliance, financial crime risk, or regulatory assessment frameworks.

• Experience with version control systems (e.g., Git), workflow orchestration (e.g., Airflow), and data visualization tools (e.g., Tableau).

• Understanding of data governance principles and data management.

• CAMS, CSS or equivalent sanctions or AML certification.

What’s in it for you?

We thrive on the challenge to be our best, progressive thinking to keep growing, and working together to deliver trusted advice to help our clients thrive and communities prosper. We care about each other, reaching our potential, making a difference to our communities, and achieving success that is mutual.

• A comprehensive Total Rewards Program including bonuses and flexible benefits, competitive compensation, commissions, and stock where applicable

• Leaders who support your development through coaching and managing opportunities

• Ability to make a difference and lasting impact

• Work in a dynamic, collaborative, progressive, and high-performing team

• A world-class training program in financial services

• Flexible work/life balance options

• Opportunities to do challenging work

#LI-Post

#TechPJ

Job Skills

Big Data Management, Critical Thinking, Data Administration, Data Governance, Data Movement, Data Warehousing (DW), Information Capture, Knowledge Organization, Long Term Planning, Repository Tools

Additional Job Details

Address:

20 KING ST W:TORONTO

City:

TORONTO

Country:

Canada

Work hours/week:

37.5

Employment Type:

Full time

Platform:

GROUP RISK MANAGEMENT

Job Type:

Contract (Fixed Term)

Pay Type:

Salaried

Posted Date:

2025-06-30

Application Deadline:

2025-07-18

Note: Applications will be accepted until 11:59 PM on the day prior to the application deadline date above

Inclusion and Equal Opportunity Employment

At RBC, we believe an inclusive workplace that has diverse perspectives is core to our continued growth as one of the largest and most successful banks in the world. Maintaining a workplace where our employees feel supported to perform at their best, effectively collaborate, drive innovation, and grow professionally helps to bring our Purpose to life and create value for our clients and communities. RBC strives to deliver this through policies and programs intended to foster a workplace based on respect, belonging and opportunity for all.

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