Distinguished Software Engineer - Identity

Overview Distinguished Software Engineer - Identity

As a Distinguished Engineer at Capital One, you will be a part of a community of technical experts working to define the future of banking in the cloud.

The Mission: We are moving beyond the era of static, administrative-time access to a future defined by Adaptive, Policy-Based Orchestration. We aren't just migrating our core infrastructure from on-premise to the Cloud; we are fundamentally re-architecting how identity serves as the perimeter in a highly regulated environment.

Our goal is to abstract the complexity of legacy Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) and replace standing privileges with a Just-In-Time (JIT) ecosystem. We are looking for a visionary architect to build an intelligent, self-sufficient platform that evaluates real-time context—integrating endpoint risk, network signals, and behavioral heuristics—to grant the right access, to the right resources, at the exact moment it's needed.

What You Will Lead:

• The Move to Just-In-Time (JIT): Architect the transition away from "permanent access" to a model of zero standing privileges. You will design the systems that enable seamless, automated access elevation and revocation based on real-time necessity.

• Policy-as-Code & Abstraction: Lead the effort to abstract IGA components, moving us toward a centralized, policy-based access model that is agnostic of the underlying stack and highly automated.

• Contextual & Adaptive Security: Design an authorization fabric that factors in multi-dimensional telemetry—including device posture, network risk, and user behavior—to make dynamic, risk-based access decisions.

• Engineering Self-Sufficiency: Champion an "Identity-as-a-Service" internal culture, building developer-centric APIs and self-service capabilities that allow our product teams to move fast without compromising our rigorous regulatory guardrails.

• Governance in a Regulated Landscape: Navigate the complexity of a highly regulated financial environment, ensuring that our leap into the future of IAM meets and exceeds the most stringent compliance and audit standards.

The Visionary We Need: You are a recognized leader in the Identity space who understands that the "Cloud Journey" is only the foundation. You have experience decoupling legacy monoliths, implementing Open Policy Agent (OPA) or similar policy engines, and building resilient, high-scale distributed systems. You don’t just "manage" identity; you treat Identity as the core engine of a modern Zero Trust architecture.

Distinguished Engineers are expected to lead through technical contribution. You will operate as a trusted advisor for our key technologies, platforms and capability domains, creating clear and concise communications, code samples, blog posts and other material to share knowledge both inside and outside the organization. You will specialize in a particular subject area, but your input and impact will be sought and expected throughout the organization.

If you are ready to provide thought leadership and build engineering excellence across Capital One's engineering teams, come join us in our mission to change banking for good.

Key responsibilities:

• Articulate and evangelize a bold technical vision for your domain

• Decompose complex problems into practical and operational solutions

• Ensure the quality of technical design and implementation

• Serve as an authoritative expert on non-functional system characteristics, such as performance, scalability and operability

• Continue learning and injecting advanced technical knowledge into our community

• Handle several projects simultaneously, balancing your time to maximize impact

• Act as a role model and mentor within the tech community, helping to coach and strengthen the technical expertise and know-how of our engineering and product community

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree

• At least 7 years of experience in Software engineering and solution architecture

• At least 7 years of experience in Enterprise architecture and design patterns

Preferred Qualifications: 

• Bachelor's or Master's Degree in Computer Science or a related field

• 10+ years of professional experience coding in commonly used languages (Java, Python, Go, JavaScript/TypeScript, Swift)

• 8+ years of professional experience in the full lifecycle of system development, from conception through architecture, implementation, testing, deployment and production support

• 3+ years of experience with public or private cloud technologies

• 1+ years of experience with IAM

• 3+ years of experience modernizing legacy systems

• 1+ years of experience with AI coding tools 

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.

McLean, VA: $269,100 - $307,200 for Distinguished Engineer

Plano, TX: $244,700 - $279,200 for Distinguished Engineer

Richmond, VA: $244,700 - $279,200 for Distinguished 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 View phone number on us.fitly.work or via email at View email address on us.fitly.work . 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 us.fitly.work

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).