Lead AI Engineer (GenAI Platform, AI Foundations, LLM Core and Agentic AI)

As a Lead AI Engineer, you will design, deploy, and optimize AI software components across Capital One's GenAI Platform, AI Foundations, LLM Core, and Agentic AI initiatives, aligning foundational AI systems with business needs. This onsite role is based in McLean, VA, with a salary range of USD 197,300 to 225,100 per year.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with a cross functional team of engineers, research scientists, technical program managers, and product managers to deliver AI driven products that transform how colleagues work and how customers engage with Capital One.
• Lead the design, development, testing, deployment, and ongoing support of AI software components, including foundation model training, LLM inference, vector similarity search, guardrails, model evaluation, experimentation, governance, and observability.
• Utilize a broad stack of open source and SaaS AI technologies, including AWS Ultraclusters, Hugging Face, VectorDBs, Nemo Guardrails, PyTorch, and related tools.
• Develop and apply cutting edge LLM optimization techniques to improve production AI systems on metrics like scalability, cost, latency, and throughput.
• Contribute to the technical vision and long term roadmaps for foundational AI systems at Capital One.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, AI, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related fields with at least 4 years of AI/ML algorithm or technology development experience, or a Master's degree in the same fields with at least 2 years of AI/ML development experience.
• A minimum of four years of programming experience in Python, Go, Scala, or Java.

Technologies

• Python
• Go
• Scala
• Java
• C++
• C#
• AWS Ultraclusters
• Hugging Face
• VectorDBs
• Nemo Guardrails
• PyTorch

Benefits

• Health benefits
• Financial benefits
• Incentives, including cash bonuses and long-term incentives

Overview

Capital One is building responsible and reliable AI systems to transform banking for good. The company has a track record of leveraging machine learning to deliver real-time, personalized experiences for customers and has invested heavily in technology infrastructure and top-tier talent. This foundation positions Capital One at the leading edge of enterprise AI adoption, enabling data-driven capabilities that inform customers and streamline operations across the organization.

Team Description

The Intelligent Foundations and Experiences (IFX) team sits at the core of Capital One's AI strategy, partnering with teams across the company to push the boundaries of AI engineering and science. We develop and deploy proprietary solutions central to the business, delivering value to millions of customers. Our AI models and platforms empower teams to enhance products with AI at scale.

The Ideal Candidate

• You enjoy building systems, take pride in code quality, and are motivated to do the right thing, with a goal of transforming banking for good.
• You stay current with the latest research and can translate scientific publications into production-ready techniques.
• You adapt quickly, bring clarity to complex problems, ask questions, and can articulate findings concisely; you contribute new ideas even when unproven.
• You are deeply technical, with a strong foundation in engineering and mathematics, and your expertise in hardware, software, and AI helps you spot optimization opportunities others miss.
• You are a resilient trailblazer who can forge new paths to achieve business goals when the route is unclear.