Applied AI Researcher, Foundations & Large Models

Capital One; Cambridge (MA); On-site; USD 306,000 - 350,000; Full time

Job summary

Capital One is seeking a Staff Applied Researcher to drive strategic AI initiatives in Cambridge, MA. You will lead the development of AI foundation models, collaborate with data scientists, software engineers, and product managers, and translate research into scalable, real-world banking solutions.

The role emphasizes leadership without direct people management, external representation in the research community, and shaping the organization’s long-term scientific agenda.

Qualifications

• PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, AI, Mathematics, or related fields plus 4 years of Applied Research experience or MS plus 6 years of Applied Research.
• Demonstrated history of leading multi-year research programs that shaped AI subfields.
• Experience building large DL models (language, vision, graphs) and deployment libraries or platform-level code.

Responsibilities

• Partner with cross-functional teams to deliver AI-powered products for customer interactions.
• Leverage PyTorch, AWS Ultraclusters, HuggingFace, Lightning to build insights from large data.
• Build AI foundation models from design to training, evaluation, and deployment.
• Lead applied research translating state-of-the-art AI into deployable capabilities.
• Translate complex work into tangible business goals.
• Define novel research directions aligning with Capital One's scientific agenda.

Skills

Graph neural networks

Applied research leadership

Model deployment

Open-source ML frameworks

Training optimization

Pytorch

Education

PhD in Electrical Engineering / Computer Engineering / Computer Science / AI or related fields

MS in Electrical Engineering / Computer Engineering / Computer Science / AI or related fields

Tools

Pytorch

AWS

Hugging Face

Capital One internal ML infra

Job description

Capital One is seeking a Staff Applied Researcher to drive strategic AI initiatives in Cambridge, MA. You will lead the development of AI foundation models, collaborate with data scientists, software engineers, and product managers, and translate research into scalable, real-world banking solutions.

The role emphasizes leadership without direct people management, external representation in the research community, and shaping the organization’s long-term scientific agenda.