Director, Distinguished Engineer (Card TECH)

Director, Distinguished Engineer (Card TECH)


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.


You will work alongside our talented team of developers, machine learning experts, product managers and people leaders. Our Distinguished Engineers are leading experts in their domains, helping devise practical and reusable solutions to complex problems. You will drive innovation at multiple levels, helping optimize business outcomes while driving towards strong technology solutions.


At Capital One, we believe diversity of thought strengthens our ability to influence, collaborate and provide the most innovative solutions across organizational boundaries. You will promote a culture of engineering excellence, and strike the right balance between lending expertise and providing an inclusive environment where the ideas of others can be heard and championed. You will lead the way in creating next-generation talent for Capital One Tech, mentoring internal talent and actively recruiting to keep building our community.


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.


In this role, you will work with our Platform Engineering organization to provide AI-enabled tools for pipeline optimization and deterministic transformation capabilities that dramatically improve developer workflow, quality, and reliability.


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
• Articulate and evangelize a bold technical vision for embedding AI and automated code transformation into the developer lifecycle.
• Decompose complex problems in CI/CD friction and technical debt into practical, operational, and scalable platform solutions.
• Lead the productionization of capabilities that optimize the Inner and Outer Loop (CI/CD, deployment, and testing) and enable Shift-Left practices.
• Serve as an authoritative expert on non-functional system characteristics, particularly performance, scalability, and observability of the engineering toolchain itself.
• Drive innovation by experimenting with and delivering capabilities that utilize Deterministic Code Transformation and AI/ML for engineering workflows (e.g., Intelligent Test Selection).
• Act as a role model and mentor within the tech community, coaching teams on modern reliability, platform engineering, and automation best practices.

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or a related field.
• At least 10 years of experience in Software Engineering and Solution Architecture for large-scale distributed systems.
• At least 5 years of professional experience leveraging public cloud platforms such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud
• At least 5 years of professional experience writing and delivering Proofs of Concept (POCs) for novel technologies or architectural patterns
• At least 5 years of experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using tools such as AWS CDK or CloudFormation.
• At least 5 years of professional experience driving the adoption of enterprise-level design patterns and best practices for software quality and reliability.
• At least 5 years of hands-on professional experience coding in two or more of the following languages: Java, JavaScript, Python, or Go.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master's Degree in Computer Science or a related field
• 10+ years of professional experience in the full lifecycle of system development
• 10+ years of professional experience coding in languages like Java, Python, Go, or JavaScript.
• 5+ years of experience designing and implementing CI/CD pipelines at scale using tools like Jenkins, GitHub Actions, or Tekton.
• Expertise with Policy-as-Code (PaC) technologies such as Open Policy Agent (OPA).
• Experience with Abstract Syntax Trees (ASTs), static analysis tools, or other forms of programmatic code manipulation for automated refactoring.
• Experience in MLOps or applying Artifical Intelligence or Machine Learning concepts to engineering challenges (e.g., anomaly detection, test optimization, intelligent testing).
• Deep practical knowledge of Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) principles, chaos engineering, and advanced Observability tooling (e.g., OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Tracing).

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


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 jobs.jobcopilot.com or via email at View email address on jobs.jobcopilot.com. 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 jobs.jobcopilot.com


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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).