Distinguished Software Engineer - IFX

Capital One; New York (NY); On-site; USD 293,600 - 335,100; Full time

Job summary

Capital One is seeking a Distinguished Engineer in New York, NY, to architect and build large-scale machine learning platforms. This role involves developing distributed compute solutions using technologies such as Golang, Python, Spark, and Ray, promoting engineering excellence, and mentoring talent. Candidates should have extensive experience in software engineering and cloud technologies, with a Bachelor’s Degree required and a Master’s preferred. The salary range for this position is between $293,600 - $335,100 depending on qualifications.

Qualifications

• At least 7 years of experience in software engineering.
• At least 7 years of experience designing distributed systems.
• At least 5 years of experience with public cloud technologies.

Responsibilities

• Architect and build large scale machine learning platforms.
• Develop Ray and Spark solutions for diverse workloads.
• Engineer improvements for operational excellence.
• Direct execution of diverse project portfolios.
• Share knowledge and lead technical discussions.
• Mentor and recruit talent for Capital One.

Skills

Distributed systems design

Backend architecture

API platforms

Public cloud technologies

Golang

Python

Kubernetes

Spark

Ray

Education

Bachelor’s Degree

Master’s Degree in Computer Science or Software Engineering

Tools

AWS

EC2 UltraClusters

Graviton

Job description

Overview

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.

About the Team

The Capital One machine learning platform foundation organization manages our cloud‑based enterprise AI+ML system delivering the high‑scale developer and runtime environments required to build, orchestrate, and deploy compute and data intensive AI systems across real‑time and batch workloads. We are seeking a Distinguished Engineer, a hands‑on technical leader passionate about distributed systems, to engineer and scale foundational compute capabilities for our platform.

You will use your experience in building large scale, highly available and high performance systems to develop our common compute infrastructure on top of CPU and GPU substrates. Your contributions will power everything from developer notebooks to ML / DL model training, model inference and feature generation pipelines to pre‑training and fine tuning Transformer‑based models as well as generative AI inference and agentic applications. Your depth of expertise in technologies including Golang and Python programming languages, popular distributed compute frameworks including Spark / Dask / Ray / Flink, container (e.g., Kubernetes) and serverless (e.g., AWS Lambda) runtime environments, and ML+AI workload patterns will provide an amplifying technical element that is paramount to our team’s success.

What you’ll do

• Architect and build control and data plane implementations required to realize a highly available, multi‑tenant, large scale and a secure machine learning platform
• Develop Ray and Spark distributed compute engine solutions to accelerate diverse workloads from LLM pre‑training and reinforcement learning to large‑scale data processing, while maximizing compute unit economics
• Engineer systemic improvements for operational excellence including automating KTLO (Keep The Lights On) workflows
• Direct the technical execution of a diverse project portfolio, collaborating with developers specializing in everything ranging from distributed microservices to running large foundation models
• Work cross‑functionally with product and program management disciplines, and stakeholder and partners across Capital One to help optimize business outcomes while driving towards strong technology solutions
• Share your passion for staying on top of tech trends, experimenting with and learning new technologies, participating in internal & external technology communities, and leading system design and code review sessions
• Help elevate the Capital One Distinguished Engineering community and establish yourself as a go‑to resource on given technologies and technology‑enabled capabilities
• Lead the way in creating next‑generation talent, mentoring internal talent and actively recruiting external talent to bolster the Capital One tech talent pool

Responsibilities

• Build awareness, increase knowledge and drive adoption of modern technologies, sharing consumer and engineering benefits to gain buy‑in
• Strike the right balance between lending expertise and providing an inclusive environment where others’ ideas can be heard and championed; leverage expertise to grow skills in the broader Capital One team
• Promote a culture of engineering excellence, using opportunities to reuse and innersource solutions where possible
• Effectively communicate with and influence key stakeholders across the enterprise, at all levels of the organization
• Operate as a trusted advisor for a specific technology, platform or capability domain, helping to shape use cases and implementation in an unified manner
• Lead the way in creating next‑generation talent for Tech, mentoring internal talent and actively recruiting external talent to bolster Capital One’s Tech talent

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree
• At least 7 years of experience in software engineering
• At least 7 years of experience designing distributed systems, backend architecture, and API platforms
• At least 5 years of experience with public cloud technologies

Preferred Qualifications

• A Master’s Degree in Computer Science or a Master’s Degree in Software Engineering
• 3+ years of experience building platforms that support LLM training, fine‑tuning, or high‑throughput inference
• 3+ years of experience with AWS‑specific compute primitives (EKS, EC2 UltraClusters, Graviton) and cost‑optimization strategies
• 3+ years of experience with building platforms at scale and experience with distributed computing frameworks such as Spark and Ray

Benefits

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

Salaries

• McLean, VA: $269,100 - $307,200 for Distinguished Engineer
• New York, NY: $293,600 - $335,100 for Distinguished Engineer
• Richmond, VA: $244,700 - $279,200 for Distinguished Engineer
• San Francisco, CA: $293,600 - $335,100 for Distinguished Engineer
• San Jose, CA: $293,600 - $335,100 for Distinguished Engineer
• Other locations: salary range associated with that location; 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 expected to accept applications for a minimum of 5 business days.

Equal Opportunity Employer

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.