Andrea Franco

Director of Engineering | Digital Platforms | Engineering Strategy | AI & Platform Modernization | Technology Transformation

Greater Toronto Area, Canada

About

Technology and engineering leader with 17+ years of experience building and scaling engineering organizations that deliver secure, resilient, and customer-centric digital platforms across banking, enterprise software, industrial systems, and mobile ecosystems. As Director of Engineering at RBC, I lead engineering teams responsible for customer-facing Wealth Management and Direct Investing platforms, driving engineering strategy, platform modernization, AI enablement, operational excellence, and enterprise technology transformation within one of Canada's most regulated banking environments. My career began as a hands-on software engineer building mobile and backend solutions across native and cross-platform technologies (Kotlin, Swift, Java, Node and C++). That technical foundation continues to shape how I lead - I stay engaged in architectural decisions, guide complex technical trade-offs, and invest in developing engineering talent, coaching leaders, and building high-performing engineering organizations. I have led modernization initiatives across architecture, engineering practices, digital platforms, backend integration, developer experience, and CI/CD transformation, including the adoption of Kotlin Multiplatform, Jetpack Compose and SwiftUI. My focus is on improving developer productivity, accelerating software delivery, strengthening platform resilience, and reducing technology risk. More recently, I've been driving AI enablement across engineering teams and customer-facing platforms, leveraging AI to improve engineering productivity, accelerate software delivery, and enable intelligent digital experiences while maintaining the governance, security, and operational standards required in a regulated financial environment. I partner closely with product, architecture, security, risk, governance, and executive stakeholders to define technology strategy, align engineering execution with business priorities, and lead transformation initiatives that deliver measurable business and engineering outcomes. Core Areas of Focus • Engineering Leadership • Engineering Strategy • Technology Transformation • AI Integration & Enablement • Digital Platform Modernization • Mobile & Backend Engineering • Engineering Excellence & DevOps • Operational Resilience • Executive Stakeholder Leadership

Experience

  • RBC (4 yrs 7 mos)
    • Director of Engineering
      Mar 2026 - Present · 5 mos

    • Senior Engineering Manager
      Sep 2022 - Mar 2026 · 3 yrs 7 mos

    • Senior Lead Mobile Engineer
      May 2022 - Sep 2022 · 5 mos

  • Mobile Application Developer at BlackBerry
    Sep 2021 - Dec 2021 · 4 mos

    Developed and maintained an Android app and libraries with Kotlin, Java and C++. Built Unit, Integration and UI tests with Junit, Espresso, UI Automator and TestRail. Worked with Agile and Scrum methodologies, GIT and Gerrit for code reviews.

  • Mobile Application Engineer at Georgian College Research & Innovation
    Mar 2021 - Sep 2021 · 7 mos

    Designed, prototyped, developed and maintained an Android and iOS app with Kotlin Multiplatform Mobile for a new project in the IoT sector using Particle platform and BLE connection. Work with the scrum technology, JIRA, Git workflows and manage the CI/CD process. Focus on MVVM pattern and use of the latest libraries such as Coroutine, Flow, LiveData, SharedFlow/StateFlow, Room, Retrofit and most of the Android Jetpack components. Implement the shared business logic with native Kotlin using libraries like Ktor, SQLDelight, Kable and Koin.

  • Mobile Application Engineer at RBC
    Sep 2020 - Dec 2020 · 4 mos

    Developed and maintained banking app in Android with Kotlin and IOS with Swift. Focused on unit and integration testing for Android apps using JUnit, Espresso, Mockito and Robolectric. Worked with Agile and Scrum methodologies, Git workflows and gained my experience with CI/CD and Jenkins, App Center and Google Play Store. Focused on MVP and MVVM patterns and worked with all the latest libraries (LiveData, DataBinding, Coroutines, Flow, etc) and core mobile principals. Experience with KMM (Kotlin Multiplatform Mobile).

  • Mobile Software Developer at OverIT - Field Solutions
    Jan 2015 - Dec 2019 · 5 yrs

    Specialized in design and software development of mobile application. Development of industrial application for energy industries, automotive and services. Experience in these sectors: work force management, sales force automation, trade marketing, road and off-road gps, GIS, fleet monitoring, logistics and handling, dashboard mobile. Worked on native Android, IOS and cross-platform applications with several languages like Java, Kotlin, C#, Objective-C and Swift.