Senior Lead AI Engineer

The Senior Lead AI Engineer on the Intelligent Foundations and Experiences (IFX) team drives the design, construction, and optimization of AI systems and foundational capabilities to deliver AI powered products and scalable infrastructure. This onsite role is based in McLean, Virginia.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with a cross functional group of engineers, research scientists, program managers, and product managers to ship AI powered products that redefine associate workflows and customer interactions.
• Design, develop, test, deploy, and support AI software components including foundation model training, large language model inference, similarity search, guardrails, model evaluation, experimentation, governance, and observability.
• Leverage a broad stack of Open Source and SaaS AI technologies such as AWS Ultraclusters, Huggingface, VectorDBs, Nemo Guardrails, PyTorch, and more.
• Invent and apply state-of-the-art optimization techniques for large scale production AI systems to improve performance, scalability, cost, latency, and throughput.
• Contribute to the technical vision and the long term roadmap of foundational AI systems at Capital One.

Requirements

• Education and experience: a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, AI, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related field with at least 6 years of AI/ML development experience, or a Master’s degree in the same fields with at least 4 years of AI/ML development experience.
• Programming experience: at least 6 years of experience programming in Python, Go, Scala, or Java.

Technologies

• Python
• Go
• Scala
• Java
• AWS Ultraclusters
• Huggingface
• VectorDBs
• Nemo Guardrails
• PyTorch

Benefits

• Performance-based incentive compensation (cash bonuses and/or long-term incentives)
• Health benefits
• Financial benefits
• Other benefits that support total well-being

Overview

Capital One is building responsible and reliable AI systems to advance banking for good. The company has a history of using machine learning to deliver real-time, personalized customer experiences and continues to invest in technology infrastructure and top talent to remain at the cutting edge of AI-enabled enterprises. Our work enables capabilities from alerting customers about unusual charges to providing AI-assisted answers to inquiries.

Team Description

The Intelligent Foundations and Experiences (IFX) team sits at the core of Capital One's AI strategy, partnering across the organization to advance the state of the art in AI engineering. We build and deploy proprietary solutions that are central to the business, enabling teams to enhance products with AI and deliver value to millions of customers.

The Ideal Candidate

• Enjoys building robust systems, takes pride in code quality, and is motivated by delivering meaningful impact in banking for good.
• Maintains a strong interest in the latest AI research and can translate scientific findings into production-ready approaches.
• Adapts quickly and brings clarity to complex problems, asking questions and articulating findings concisely. Shares new ideas, even when unproven.
• Is technically grounded in engineering and mathematics, with broad expertise in hardware, software, and AI that reveals optimization opportunities others miss.
• Is a resilient innovator who can chart new paths to meet business goals when the route is unknown.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, AI, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related field plus at least 6 years of AI/ML development experience, or a Master’s degree in the same fields plus at least 4 years of AI/ML development experience.
• At least 6 years of programming experience in Python, Go, Scala, or Java.

Preferred Qualifications

• 7 years of experience deploying scalable and responsible AI solutions on cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, or equivalent private cloud).
• Experience designing, developing, integrating, delivering, and supporting complex AI systems.
• Proven ability to lead and mentor an engineering team and influence cross-functional stakeholders.
• Experience developing AI and ML algorithms or technologies (e.g., LLM inference, Similarity Search and VectorDBs, Guardrails, Memory) using Python, C++, C#, Java, or Golang.
• Experience optimizing training and inference software to improve hardware utilization, latency, throughput, and cost.
• Strong interest in AI research and systems, with the ability to apply novel techniques in production.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, capable of explaining complex AI concepts to peers.

Salary by Location

• McLean, VA: $229,900 - $262,400 for Sr. Lead AI Engineer
• New York, NY: $250,800 - $286,200 for Sr. Lead AI Engineer
• San Francisco, CA: $250,800 - $286,200 for Sr. Lead AI Engineer
• San Jose, CA: $250,800 - $286,200 for Sr. Lead AI Engineer
• Other locations: pay ranges align with local location practices; actual offer amounts are stated in the offer letter.