Director, AI Foundations & Systems

Capital One; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 294,000 - 335,000; Full time

Job summary

Capital One is seeking a Director AI Engineer to lead AI/ML platforms and responsible AI initiatives in a fast-paced banking tech environment. You will guide cross-functional teams, architect scalable AI systems, and shape product-level AI strategy across multiple domains from fraud to customer experience.

Ideal candidates combine deep technical expertise with leadership, mentoring, and a hands-on approach to building production-grade AI solutions.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in CS/AI/EE/CE required; Master’s preferred.
• Minimum 8 years AI/ML experience or 6 years with Master’s.
• At least 3 years of people leadership experience.

Responsibilities

• Partner with cross-functional engineers, researchers, PMs to deliver AI-powered products.
• Oversee design, development, testing, deployment and support of AI software components.
• Make build-vs-buy decisions across Open Source and SaaS AI tech.
• Invent foundation model optimization techniques for performance and cost.
• Contribute to the long-term AI platform roadmap at Capital One.
• Attract and retain top AI talent and mentor team members.
• Foster a culture of learning and stay updated with state-of-the-art AI.
• Translate enterprise AI strategy into execution plans across product areas.
• Scale AI engineering practices through reusable components and governance.

Skills

Leadership

Mentorship

Communication

System design

Hands-on coding

Education

Bachelor’s Degree in CS/AI/EE/CE

Master’s Degree in CS/AI/EE/CE

Tools

AWS

HuggingFace

PyTorch

VectorDBs

CUDA

Python

C++

Java

Job description

Capital One is seeking a Director AI Engineer to lead AI/ML platforms and responsible AI initiatives in a fast-paced banking tech environment. You will guide cross-functional teams, architect scalable AI systems, and shape product-level AI strategy across multiple domains from fraud to customer experience.

Ideal candidates combine deep technical expertise with leadership, mentoring, and a hands-on approach to building production-grade AI solutions.