Senior Distinguished Engineer, AI Compute (Remote Eligible)

Senior Distinguished Engineer, AI Compute (Remote Eligible)

At Capital One, we are creating responsible and reliable AI systems, changing banking for good. For years, Capital One has been an industry leader in using machine learning to create real‑time, personalized customer experiences. 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. At Capital One, you will help bring the transformative power of emerging AI capabilities to reimagine how we serve our customers and businesses who have come to love the products and services we build.

Team Description

The Capital One machine learning platform organization manages our cloud‑based enterprise AI+ML system delivering the high‑scale developer and runtime environments required to build, orchestrate, and deploy compute and data‑intensive AI systems across real‑time and batch workloads. We are seeking a Senior Distinguished Engineer, a hands‑on technical leader passionate about distributed systems, to engineer and scale foundational compute capabilities for our platform.

In this role, you will

• Architect and build control and data plane implementations required to realize a highly available, multi‑tenant, large scale and a secure machine learning platform

• Develop Ray and Spark distributed compute engine solutions to accelerate diverse workloads from LLM pre‑training and reinforcement learning to large‑scale data processing, while maximizing compute unit economics

• Engineer systemic improvements for operational excellence including automating KTLO (Keep The Lights On) workflows

• Direct the technical execution of a diverse project portfolio, collaborating with developers specializing in everything ranging from distributed microservices to running large foundation models

• Work cross‑functionally with product and program management disciplines, and stakeholder and partners across Capital One to help optimize business outcomes while driving towards strong technology solutions

• Share your passion for staying on top of tech trends, experimenting with and learning new technologies, participating in internal & external technology communities, and leading system design and code review sessions

• Help elevate the Capital One Distinguished Engineering community and establish yourself as a go‑to resource on given technologies and technology‑enabled capabilities

• Lead the way in creating next‑generation talent, mentoring internal talent and actively recruiting external talent to bolster the Capital One tech talent pool

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree
• At least 7 years of experience with application architecture and design patterns.
• At least 5 years of experience with distributed databases, microservice architectures, and high availability systems

Preferred Qualifications

• Degree in Computer Science or a Master’s Degree in Software Engineering
• Hands on experience in the internals of Ray (Actors/GCS/Scheduling) or Spark (Query Optimizer/Memory Management)
• Experience building platforms that support LLM training, fine‑tuning, or high‑throughput inference
• Hands‑on experience with AWS‑specific compute primitives (EKS, EC2 UltraClusters, Graviton) and cost‑optimization strategies.

Capital One will consider sponsoring a new qualified applicant for employment authorization for this position.

The minimum and maximum full‑time annual salaries for this role are listed below, by location. Please note that this salary information is solely for candidates hired to perform work within one of these locations, and refers to the amount Capital One is willing to pay at the time of this posting. Salaries for part‑time roles will be prorated based upon the agreed upon number of hours to be regularly worked.

Cambridge, MA: $314,800 - $359,300 for Sr. Distinguished AI Engineer

McLean, VA: $314,800 - $359,300 for Sr. Distinguished AI Engineer

New York, NY: $343,400 - $392,000 for Sr. Distinguished AI Engineer

Richmond, VA: $286,200 - $326,700 for Sr. Distinguished AI Engineer

San Francisco, CA: $343,400 - $392,000 for Sr. Distinguished AI Engineer

San Jose, CA: $343,400 - $392,000 for Sr. Distinguished AI Engineer

Candidates hired to work in other locations will be subject to the pay range associated with that location, and the actual annualized salary amount offered to any candidate at the time of hire will be reflected solely in the candidate’s offer letter.

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.

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

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 for employment qualified applicants with a criminal history in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable laws regarding criminal background inquiries, including, to the extent applicable, Article 23‑A of the New York Correction Law; San Francisco, California Police Code Article 49, Sections 4901‑4920; New York City’s Fair Chance Act; Philadelphia’s Fair Criminal Records Screening Act; and other applicable federal, state, and local laws and regulations regarding criminal background inquiries.

If you have visited our website in search of information on employment opportunities or to apply for a position, and you require an accommodation, please contact Capital One Recruiting at 1-800-304-9102 or via email at [email protected]. All information you provide will be kept confidential and will be used only to the extent required to provide needed reasonable accommodations.

For technical support or questions about Capital One's recruiting process, please send an email to [email protected].

Capital One does not provide, endorse nor guarantee and is not liable for third‑party products, services, educational tools or other information available through this site.

Capital One Financial is made up of several different entities. Please note that any position posted in Canada is for Capital One Canada, any position posted in the United Kingdom is for Capital One Europe and any position posted in the Philippines is for Capital One Philippines Service Corp. (COPSSC).