Distinguished Software Engineer - IFX

Capital One National Association; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 293,600 - 335,100; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Performance-based incentives

Comprehensive health benefits

Inclusive workplace

Job summary

Capital One National Association is seeking a Distinguished Software Engineer in San Jose, CA to lead the development of a large-scale machine-learning platform. This role involves architecting implementations, developing distributed computing solutions, and mentoring talent. Candidates should have significant experience in software engineering, designing distributed systems, and public cloud technologies such as AWS. The position offers a competitive salary range of $293,600 - $335,100 along with performance-based incentives.

Qualifications

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

Responsibilities

• Architect and build implementations for a large-scale machine‑learning platform.
• Develop distributed compute engine solutions using Spark and Ray.
• Lead technical execution of diverse project portfolio.

Skills

Software engineering

Distributed systems

API platforms

Public cloud technologies

Mentoring

Collaboration

Automation

Education

Bachelor’s Degree

Master’s Degree in Computer Science or Software Engineering

Tools

AWS (specifically EKS, EC2, Graviton)

Spark

Ray

Go

Python

Job description

Distinguished Software Engineer - IFX

As a Distinguished Engineer at Capital One, you will be part of a community of technical experts working to define the future of banking in the cloud. You will collaborate with developers, machine learning experts, product managers and leaders to create practical, reusable solutions to complex problems, driving innovation and optimizing business outcomes.

Capital One values diverse thought, and you will promote a culture of engineering excellence, balancing technical expertise with an inclusive environment where ideas are heard and championed. You will help build next‑generation talent by mentoring and recruiting.

About the Team

The Capital One machine‑learning platform foundation organization manages a cloud‑based AI+ML system that delivers high‑scale developer and runtime environments for building, orchestrating, and deploying compute‑ and data‑intensive AI systems. We are seeking a hands‑on technical leader to engineer and scale foundational compute capabilities across CPU and GPU substrates.

Your expertise in building large‑scale, highly available, high‑performance systems will drive our common compute infrastructure. You will contribute to projects ranging from developer notebooks to ML/DL model training, inference, feature pipelines, pre‑training and fine‑tuning of transformer‑based models, and generative AI inference and agentic applications. Proficiency with Go, Python, Spark, Dask, Ray, Flink, Kubernetes, AWS Lambda, and AI workload patterns will amplify our success.

What you’ll do

• Architect and build control and data plane implementations for a highly available, multi‑tenant, large‑scale, secure machine‑learning platform.
• Develop Spark and Ray distributed compute engine solutions to accelerate diverse workloads from LLM pre‑training and reinforcement learning to large‑scale data processing, maximizing compute unit economics.
• Improve operational excellence by automating keep‑the‑lights‑on workflows.
• Lead the technical execution of a diverse project portfolio, collaborating with developers across distributed microservices and foundation model execution.
• Work cross‑functionally with product, program management, and stakeholders to optimize business outcomes and technology solutions.
• Share passion for emerging tech, experiment, learn, and lead system‑design and code‑review sessions within internal and external communities.
• Elevate the Distinguished Engineering community and serve as a go‑to resource on key technologies.
• Mentor internal talent and actively recruit external candidates to expand Capital One’s tech talent pool.

Responsibilities

• Build awareness, foster knowledge, and drive adoption of modern technologies, sharing consumer and engineering benefits.
• Balance expertise with an inclusive environment, leveraging knowledge to grow skills across the team.
• Promote engineering excellence, encouraging reuse and innersource solutions where possible.
• Communicate with stakeholder influence at all levels of the organization.
• Act as a trusted advisor for a specific technology, platform, or capability domain, shaping use cases and implementations.
• Mentor and recruit to create next‑generation talent for Capital One’s Tech.

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

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

Capital One will consider sponsoring an applicant for employment authorization for this position.

Salary (by location)

• McLean, VA: $269,100 - $307,200
• New York, NY: $293,600 - $335,100
• Richmond, VA: $244,700 - $279,200
• San Francisco, CA: $293,600 - $335,100
• San Jose, CA: $293,600 - $335,100

This role is eligible for performance‑based incentive compensation, including cash bonuses and long‑term incentives. Incentives may be discretionary or non‑discretionary based on plan.

Capital One offers a comprehensive, competitive, and inclusive set of health, financial, and other benefits that support your total well‑being.

Capital One is an equal opportunity employer (EOE, including disability and veteran status) committed to non‑discrimination in compliance with applicable federal, state, and local laws. Capital One promotes a drug‑free workplace.