Sr. Distinguished Applied Researcher

Sr. Distinguished Applied Researcher Overview At Capital One, we are creating trustworthy and reliable AI systems, changing banking for good. For years, Capital One has been leading the industry in using machine learning to create real‑time, intelligent, automated customer experiences. 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 building world‑class applied science and engineering teams and continue 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 AI Foundations team is at the center of bringing our vision for AI at Capital One to life. Our work touches every aspect of the research life cycle, from partnering with academia to building production systems. We work with product, technology and business leaders to apply the state of the art in AI to our business. Role Overview This is an individual‑contributor (IC) role driving strategic direction through collaboration with Applied Science, Engineering and Product leaders across Capital One. As a well‑respected IC leader, you will guide and mentor a team of applied scientists and their managers without being a direct people leader. You will be expected to be an external leader representing Capital One in the research community, collaborating with prominent faculty members in the relevant AI research community. Key Responsibilities Partner with a cross‑functional team of data scientists, software engineers, machine learning engineers and product managers to deliver AI‑powered products that change how customers interact with their money. Leverage a broad stack of technologies – Pytorch, AWS Ultraclusters, Huggingface, Lightning, VectorDBs, and more – to reveal the insights hidden within huge volumes of numeric and textual data. Build AI foundation models through all phases of development, from design through training, evaluation, validation, and implementation. Engage in high‑impact applied research to take the latest AI developments and push them into the next generation of customer experiences. Flex your interpersonal skills to translate the complexity of your work into tangible business goals. Ideal Candidate You love the process of analyzing and creating, but also share our passion to do the right thing. You know at the end of the day it’s about making the right decision for our customers. Innovative. You continually research and evaluate emerging technologies. You stay current on published state‑of‑the‑art methods, technologies, and applications and seek out opportunities to apply them. Creative. You thrive on bringing definition to big, undefined problems. You love asking questions and pushing hard to find answers. You’re not afraid to share a new idea. A leader. You challenge conventional thinking and work with stakeholders to identify and improve the status quo. You’re passionate about talent development for your own team and beyond. Technical. You’re comfortable with open‑source languages and are passionate about developing further. You have hands‑on experience developing AI foundation models and solutions using open‑source tools and cloud computing platforms. Has a deep understanding of the foundations of AI methodologies. Experience building large deep learning models, whether on language, images, events, or graphs, as well as expertise in one or more of the following: training optimization, self‑supervised learning, robustness, explainability, RLHF. An engineering mindset as shown by a track record of delivering models at scale both in terms of training data and inference volumes. Experience in delivering libraries, platform‑level code or solution‑level code to existing products. A professional with a track record of coming up with new ideas or improving upon existing ideas in machine learning, demonstrated by accomplishments such as first‑author publications or projects. Possess the ability to own and pursue a research agenda, including choosing impactful research problems and autonomously carrying out long‑running projects. Basic Qualifications PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, AI, Mathematics, or related fields plus 6 years of experience in Applied Research or M.S. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, AI, Mathematics, or related fields plus 8 years of experience in Applied Research Preferred Qualifications PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Computer Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Electrical Engineering or related fields LLM PhD focus on NLP or Masters with 10 years of industrial NLP research experience Core contributor to team that has trained a large language model from scratch (10B+ parameters, 500B+ tokens) Numerous publications at ACL, NAACL and EMNLP, NeurIPS, ICML or ICLR on topics related to the pre‑training of large language models (e.g. technical reports of pre‑trained LLMs, SSL techniques, model pre‑training optimization) Has worked on an LLM (open source or commercial) that is currently available for use Demonstrated ability to guide the technical direction of a large‑scale model training team Experience working with 500+ node clusters of GPUs; has worked on LLM scaled to 70B parameters and 1T+ tokens Experience with common training optimization frameworks (deep speed, Nemo) Salary The minimum and maximum full‑time annual salaries for this role are listed below, by location. Salaries are for candidates hired to perform work within the specified location. Sales Territory: $311,900 – $356,000 Cambridge, MA: $343,100 – $391,600 McLean, VA: $343,100 – $391,600 New York, NY: $374,300 – $427,200 San Francisco, CA: $374,300 – $427,200 This role is also eligible to earn performance‑based incentive compensation, which may include cash bonus(es) and/or long‑term incentives (LTI). Benefits & Incentives Capital One offers a comprehensive, competitive, and inclusive set of health, financial and other benefits that support your total well‑being. Application & Contact 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) and is 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. 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 View phone number on click.appcast.io or via email at View email address on click.appcast.io. 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 View email address on click.appcast.io. 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). #J-18808-Ljbffr Capital One National Association