Lead Machine Learning Engineer

Lead Machine Learning Engineer

About Capital One

At Capital One, we are changing banking for good by creating responsible and reliable AI‑powered systems. Our investments in technology infrastructure and world‑class talent—along with our deep experience in machine learning—position us to be at the forefront of enterprises leveraging AI. From informing customers about unusual charges to answering their questions in real time, our applications of AI & ML are bringing humanity and simplicity to banking. We are committed to continuing to build world‑class applied science and engineering teams to deliver our industry‑leading capabilities with breakthrough product experiences and scalable, high‑performance AI infrastructure.

In Risk Tech, we provide the foundation for Capital One to thrive in an uncertain world. Our engaged, empowered, and intelligent people produce outstanding products, working toward the common goal of transforming risk management with technology. We build data‑driven tools that use machine learning to prevent risks & automatically detect issues before they impact our customers, our business, or our communities.

Role Overview

In this role at Risk Tech, you will work with our internal Audit team and partners across the company to build and deploy proprietary solutions that are powered by state‑of‑the‑art AI technology. Our products, enhanced with the transformative power of AI, are central to our business and deliver tremendous customer value.

Responsibilities

• Partner with a cross‑functional team of engineers, data scientists, product managers, and designers to deliver AI‑powered products that change how our associates work and provide value to our customers.
• Design, develop, test, deploy, and support AI software components utilizing machine learning models, including model evaluation and experimentation, large language model inference, similarity search, guardrails, governance, observability and agentic AI.
• Fine‑tune, develop and evaluate machine learning and foundation models.
• Collaborate as part of a cross‑functional Agile team to create and enhance software that utilizes state‑of‑the‑art AI and ML capabilities.
• Contribute thought leadership and technical vision to the long‑term roadmap of pioneering AI systems at Capital One.
• Leverage a broad stack of Open Source and SaaS AI technologies.
• Inform your ML infrastructure decisions using your understanding of ML modeling techniques and issues.
• Retrain, maintain, and monitor models in production.
• Construct optimized data pipelines to feed ML models.
• Ensure all code is well‑managed to reduce vulnerabilities, models are well‑governed from a risk perspective, and the ML follows best practices in Responsible and Explainable AI.

Ideal Candidate

• Passion & Communication: You love to build systems, take pride in the quality of your work, and share our passion to do the right thing. You are a passionate communicator, comfortable explaining complex technical concepts to non‑technical partners, sometimes in front of large audiences.
• Research Savvy: Passion for staying abreast of the latest research, with the ability to intuitively understand scientific publications and judiciously apply novel techniques in production.
• Problem Solving: Adapt quickly, thrive on bringing clarity to big, undefined problems, ask questions, dig deep to uncover root causes, and articulate findings concisely.
• Technical Depth: Strong foundation in engineering and mathematics; expertise in hardware, software, and AI enables you to see and exploit optimization opportunities others miss.
• Strategic & Business‑Oriented: Understand business needs and how AI can solve them; strategize and prioritize work that delivers the greatest business value.
• Highly Collaborative & Transparent: Natural partner across engineering, product, and data science teams; communicate progress, blockers, and decisions clearly and proactively.
• Technically Mature & Humble: Resilient problem‑solver who brings clarity to complex, undefined problems and commits to executing team decisions.
• Flexible & Fungible: Eager to roll up sleeves and contribute wherever the team needs you most; comfortable working across different aspects of the tech stack.
• Lifelong Learner: Love staying current with the latest AI research and applying novel techniques to production systems with a focus on business impact.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree
• At least 6 years of experience designing and building data‑intensive solutions using distributed computing (internship experience does not apply)
• At least 4 years of experience programming with Python, Go, Scala, or Java
• At least 3 years of experience deploying scalable software solutions on cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, or equivalent private cloud)

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s degree in Computer Science, AI, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related fields plus at least 2 years of experience developing AI and ML algorithms or technologies
• 6 years of experience designing, developing, delivering, and supporting AI services at scale
• 3 years of experience developing AI and ML algorithms or technologies using Python
• 2 years of experience with Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)
• Experience deploying scalable AI/ML solutions in a public cloud such as AWS Bedrock, Google Cloud, Azure
• Experience designing, implementing, and scaling complex data pipelines for ML models and evaluating their performance

Compensation

• Cambridge, MA: $193,400 – $220,700
• McLean, VA: $193,400 – $220,700
• Richmond, VA: $175,800 – $200,700

Candidates hired to work in other locations will be subject to the pay range associated with that location. This role is also eligible to earn performance‑based incentive compensation, which may include cash bonus(es) and/or long‑term incentives (LTI). Incentives could be discretionary or non‑discretionary depending on the plan.

Benefits

Capital One offers a comprehensive, competitive, and inclusive set of health, financial, and other benefits that support your total well‑being. Eligibility varies based on full‑ or part‑time status, exempt or non‑exempt status, and management level. Learn more at the Capital One Careers website.

Additional Information

• This role is expected to accept applications for a minimum of 5 business days.
• No agencies, please.
• Capital One is an equal opportunity employer (EOE, including disability/vet) committed to non‑discrimination in compliance with applicable federal, state, and local laws.
• Capital One promotes a drug‑free workplace.
• Capital One will consider qualified applicants with a criminal history in a manner consistent with applicable laws regarding criminal background inquiries.
• For accommodation requests, contact Capital One Recruiting at 1‑800‑304‑9102 or via email (address provided in the original posting).
• For technical support or questions about Capital One’s recruiting process, please send an email to the address provided in the original posting.
• Capital One does not provide, endorse, nor guarantee third‑party products, services, educational tools, or other information available through this site.
• Capital One Financial is made up of several different entities. Positions posted in Canada are for Capital One Canada; in the United Kingdom for Capital One Europe; and in the Philippines for Capital One Philippines Service Corp. (COPSSC).

Company: Capital One
Level: Senior (5+ years of experience)
Tags: Industry, Language Modeling, Machine Learning, NLP, United States
Job ID: #J-18808-Ljbffr