Senior Director, Data Science

Senior Director, Data Science

Data is at the center of everything we do. As a startup, we disrupted the credit card industry by individually personalizing every credit card offer using statistical modeling and the relational database, cutting edge technology in 1988! Fast-forward a few years, and this little innovation and our passion for data has skyrocketed us to a Fortune 200 company and a leader in the world of data-driven decision-making.

As a Data Science Leader at Capital One, you’ll be part of a team that’s leading the next wave of disruption at a whole new scale, using the latest in computing and machine learning technologies and operating across billions of customer records to unlock the big opportunities that help everyday people save money, time and agony in their financial lives.

About the Team

We're building a portfolio of agentic AI products to transform Capital One's engineering organizations and lines of business – autonomous coding agents, context engineering, and agentic model-development lifecycle to name a few. We're creating a new science team to help define the long-term strategy, analyze & optimize impact throughout the ecosystem, and drive business value at enterprise scale. As a scientist on the team, you'd design AI/ML models and help build the solutions behind these products. You'd also own the science that guides them: designing experiments (A/B tests), modeling telemetry, and turning the results into AI strategy and guidance for C-suite leadership.

In this role, you will:

• Partner with a cross-functional team of software engineers, distinguished researchers, and solutions architects to drive great decisions through modeling
• Define and drive towards an end state that is based on simplicity and the adoption of digital technologies, cloud hosting, and open source software.
• Distill the details of complex interconnected modeling systems to influence senior business leaders on model strategy, business use, and risks
• Assess, challenge, and at times defend state-of-the-­art decision‑making systems to internal and regulatory partners
• Shape our practice of building machine learning models, from design through training, evaluation, validation, and implementation
• Oversee development of benchmark and challenger models to stress test critical modeling decisions

The Ideal Candidate is:

• A leader. You challenge conventional thinking and work with stakeholders to identify and improve the status quo.
• 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.
• Technical. You’re comfortable with open‑source languages and are passionate about developing further. You have hands‑on experience developing data science solutions using open‑source tools and cloud computing platforms.
• Statistically‑minded. You’ve built models, validated them, and backtested them. You know how to interpret a confusion matrix or a ROC curve. You have experience with clustering, classification, sentiment analysis, time series, and deep learning.

Basic Qualifications:

• Currently has, or is in the process of obtaining one of the following with an expectation that the required degree will be obtained on or before the scheduled start date :
  • A Bachelor's Degree in a quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Operations Research, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related quantitative field) plus 11 years of experience performing data analytics
  • A Master's Degree in a quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Operations Research, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related quantitative field) or an MBA with a quantitative concentration plus 9 years of experience performing data analytics
  • A PHD in a quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Operations Research, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related quantitative field) plus 6 years of experience performing data analytics
• At least 6 years of experience leveraging open source programming languages for large scale data analysis
• At least 6 years of experience working with machine learning
• At least 6 years of experience utilizing relational databases

Preferred Qualifications:

• PhD in “STEM” field (Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics) plus 5 years of experience in data analytics
• At least 6 years of experience in Python, Scala, or R for large scale data analysis
• At least 6 years of experience with machine learning
• At least 2 year of experience working with AWS
• At least 6 years of experience with complex architectural patterns (SOA), building APIs, microservices, and event streams
• At least 6 years of experience with DevOps or DevSecOps and building CI/CD pipelines using Jenkins, Artifactory, Chef, Ansible, AWS CloudFormation templates, GitHub, and Sonar

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

Capital One is open to hiring a Remote Employee for this opportunity.

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 Dir, Data ScienceMcLean, VA: $314,800 - $359,300 for Sr Dir, Data ScienceNew York, NY: $343,400 - $392,000 for Sr Dir, Data ScienceRichmond, VA: $286,200 - $326,700 for Sr Dir, Data ScienceSan Francisco, CA: $343,400 - $392,000 for Sr Dir, Data Science

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.

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.

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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).