AI Engineer

Wiraa; United States; On-site; USD 180,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Health benefits

Professional growth

AI tech access

Job summary

Capital One is seeking a Staff AI Engineer to lead foundational AI systems and enterprise-wide architecture standards. You will design, develop, and support AI-powered products, collaborating with engineers, researchers, and product managers to deliver scalable solutions.

You will champion responsible AI, guide model routing and orchestration, and drive governance, observability, and performance optimization across cloud and on‑premise environments.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in CS/AI/EE or related field with 8+ years in AI/ML.
• 8+ years Python/Java/Scala/CUDA experience.
• Experience deploying AI on cloud platforms.
• Proven ability to architect and deliver complex AI systems.
• Strong communication and leadership across teams.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to deliver AI-powered products.
• Design, deploy, and support AI software components across platforms.
• Utilize open source and SaaS AI technologies (AWS Ultraclusters, Huggingface, VectorDBs, PyTorch).
• Invent and implement optimization techniques for large-scale AI systems.
• Contribute to long-term technical vision and enterprise AI standards.
• Champion responsible AI and governance across systems.

Skills

Python

Go

Scala

CUDA

Java

Cloud architectures

Leadership

Communication

LLM inference

Vector databases

Education

Bachelor's in CS/EE/AI

Master's in CS/AI

Tools

AWS Ultraclusters

Huggingface

VectorDBs

PyTorch

Job description

About The Company

At Capital One, we are committed to creating responsible and reliable AI systems that are transforming banking for the better. As an industry leader in machine learning, we have leveraged technology to deliver real-time, personalized customer experiences for years. Our investments in infrastructure and top-tier talent, combined with deep expertise in machine learning, position us at the forefront of enterprises advancing AI. From alerting customers about unusual charges to providing real-time assistance, our AI and ML applications bring simplicity and humanity to banking. We are dedicated to building world-class applied science and engineering teams to deliver industry-leading AI capabilities, breakthrough product experiences, and scalable, high-performance AI infrastructure. Join us and help unlock the transformative power of emerging AI technologies to redefine how we serve our customers and businesses.

About The Company

At Capital One, we are committed to creating responsible and reliable AI systems that are transforming banking for the better. As an industry leader in machine learning, we have leveraged technology to deliver real-time, personalized customer experiences for years. Our investments in infrastructure and top-tier talent, combined with deep expertise in machine learning, position us at the forefront of enterprises advancing AI. From alerting customers about unusual charges to providing real-time assistance, our AI and ML applications bring simplicity and humanity to banking. We are dedicated to building world-class applied science and engineering teams to deliver industry-leading AI capabilities, breakthrough product experiences, and scalable, high-performance AI infrastructure. Join us and help unlock the transformative power of emerging AI technologies to redefine how we serve our customers and businesses.

About The Role

The Intelligent Foundations and Experiences (IFX) team is central to realizing Capital One’s AI vision. Working closely with partners across the company, we advance the state of the art in AI science and engineering by building and deploying proprietary solutions that deliver value to millions of customers. Our AI models and platforms empower teams across Capital One to enhance their products responsibly and at scale. As a Staff AI Engineer, you will collaborate with engineers, research scientists, and product managers to design, develop, and support AI-powered products that transform how associates work and customers interact with Capital One. You will lead the technical vision and roadmap for foundational AI systems, set enterprise-wide AI architecture standards, and champion responsible AI principles. This role offers the opportunity to innovate at the intersection of AI research and production systems, driving impact across the organization.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, AI, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related field plus at least 8 years of experience developing AI and ML algorithms or technologies, or a Master's degree in a related field plus at least 6 years of experience
• At least 8 years of programming experience in Python, Go, Scala, CUDA, or Java
• Experience designing AI systems balancing tradeoffs among cost, latency, throughput, and accuracy
• 8+ years deploying scalable and responsible AI solutions on cloud platforms such as AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, or equivalent private cloud
• Proven ability to architect, design, develop, integrate, deliver, and support complex AI systems
• Demonstrated leadership and mentorship experience influencing cross-functional teams and senior stakeholders
• Expertise in AI and ML algorithm development including LLM inference, similarity search, vector databases, guardrails, and memory systems
• Experience optimizing training and inference software for hardware utilization, latency, throughput, and cost
• Background in building agentic AI systems and multi-agent workflows
• Strong communication and presentation skills with ability to convey complex AI concepts clearly
• Experience defining and operationalizing enterprise AI architecture standards, including data pipeline governance, observability, and evaluation frameworks
• Experience leading federated or multi-cloud AI strategies to enhance resilience, compliance, and compute efficiency
• Track record of guiding research-to-production promotion processes, including model evaluation and productization
• Ability to define balanced north-star metrics for AI systems encompassing business value, innovation, cost, and ethical responsibility
• Experience sizing models, instance counts, and hardware types based on requirements such as context length and token inputs/outputs

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams including engineers, scientists, program managers, and product managers to deliver AI-powered products
• Design, develop, test, deploy, and support AI software components such as foundation model training, large language model inference, agents, multi-agent workflows, similarity search, guardrails, model evaluation, experimentation, governance, and observability
• Utilize a broad stack of open source and SaaS AI technologies including AWS Ultraclusters, Huggingface, VectorDBs, and PyTorch
• Invent and implement state-of-the-art foundation model optimization techniques to enhance performance, scalability, cost efficiency, latency, and throughput of large-scale AI systems
• Contribute to the long-term technical vision and roadmap for foundational AI systems
• Set technical direction for enterprise-wide AI architecture, including unifying tooling, observability, and deployment standards
• Own design and integration of model routing, caching, and orchestration systems supporting hybrid and multi-model workloads
• Champion responsible AI principles by embedding transparency, reproducibility, and fairness-by-design into system architectures
• Drive internal education, mentorship, and best practice dissemination through architecture councils and AI guilds

Benefits

• Competitive salary ranges varying by location, with performance-based incentive compensation including cash bonuses and long-term incentives
• Comprehensive and inclusive health, financial, and other benefits supporting total well-being
• Opportunities for professional growth, mentorship, and leadership within a leading AI-focused financial institution
• Collaborative and innovative work environment focused on responsible AI and ethical technology development
• Access to cutting-edge AI technologies and infrastructure to support impactful projects

Equal Opportunity

Capital One is an equal opportunity employer committed to recruiting, hiring, training, and promoting qualified individuals of all backgrounds. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other protected status.