Lead AI Engineer (GenAI Platform, AI Foundations, LLM Core and Agentic AI)

Capital One; Richmond (VA); On-site; USD 179,400 - 204,700; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Performance-based incentives

Comprehensive health benefits

Employee discounts

Job summary

Capital One in Richmond, VA is seeking a Lead AI Engineer responsible for designing and developing AI-powered products that enhance customer experiences while ensuring the responsible use of AI. Working in a dynamic team, you will leverage cutting-edge AI technologies like large language models, and build scalable solutions for real-time applications.

The ideal candidate should have a degree in a related field and substantial experience in AI development and programming languages.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, AI or related fields plus 4 years experience in AI development.
• At least 4 years of programming experience with Python, Go, Scala, or Java.

Responsibilities

• Partner with cross-functional teams to deliver AI-powered products.
• Design and support AI software components including large language model inference.
• Use a broad stack of open-source and SaaS AI technologies.

Skills

Programming with Python

Cloud platforms (AWS, Google Cloud, Azure)

AI and ML algorithms

Large language models

C++

Java

Education

Bachelor's degree in relevant fields

Master's degree in relevant fields

Tools

Huggingface

PyTorch

AWS Ultraclusters

VectorDBs

Job description

Lead AI Engineer (GenAI Platform, AI Foundations, LLM Core and Agentic AI)

Overview

Lead AI Engineer

At Capital One, we are creating responsible and reliable AI systems, changing banking for good. For years, Capital One has been an industry leader in using machine learning to create real-time, personalized customer experiences. Our investments in technology infrastructure and world-class talent — along with our deep experience in machine learning — position us to be at the forefront of enterprises leveraging AI. From informing customers about unusual charges to answering their questions in real time, our applications of AI & ML are bringing humanity and simplicity to banking. We are committed to continuing to build world‑class applied science and engineering teams to deliver our industry leading capabilities with breakthrough product experiences and scalable, high‑performance AI infrastructure. At Capital One, you will help bring the transformative power of emerging AI capabilities to reimagine how we serve our customers and businesses who have come to love the products and services we build.

Team Description

The Intelligent Foundations and Experiences (IFX) team is at the center of bringing our vision for AI at Capital One to life. We work hand‑in‑hand with our partners across the company to advance the state of the art in science and AI engineering, and we build and deploy proprietary solutions that are central to our business and deliver value to millions of customers. Our AI models and platforms empower teams across Capital One to enhance their products with the transformative power of AI, in responsible and scalable ways for the highest leverage impact.

In this role, you will

• Partner with a cross‑functional team of engineers, research scientists, technical program managers, and product managers to deliver AI‑powered products that change how our associates work and how our customers interact with Capital One.
• Design, develop, test, deploy, and support AI software components including foundation model training, large language model inference, similarity search, guardrails, model evaluation, experimentation, governance, and observability, etc.
• Leverage a broad stack of Open Source and SaaS AI technologies such as AWS Ultraclusters, Huggingface, VectorDBs, Nemo Guardrails, PyTorch, and more.
• Invent and introduce state‑of‑the‑art LLM optimization techniques to improve the performance — scalability, cost, latency, throughput — of large scale production AI systems.
• Contribute to the technical vision and the long term roadmap of foundational AI systems at Capital One.

The Ideal Candidate

• You love to build systems, take pride in the quality of your work, and also share our passion to do the right thing. You want to work on problems that will help change banking for good.
• Passion for staying abreast of the latest research, and an ability to intuitively understand scientific publications and judiciously apply novel techniques in production.
• You adapt quickly and thrive on bringing clarity to big, undefined problems. You love asking questions and digging deep to uncover the root of problems and can articulate your findings concisely with clarity. You have the courage to share new ideas even when they are unproven.
• You are deeply technical. You possess a strong foundation in engineering and mathematics, and your expertise in hardware, software, and AI enable you to see and exploit optimization opportunities that others miss.
• You are a resilient trail blazer who can forge new paths to achieve business goals when the route is unknown.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, AI, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related fields plus at least 4 years of experience developing AI and ML algorithms or technologies, or a Master's degree in Computer Science, AI, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related fields plus at least 2 years of experience developing AI and ML algorithms or technologies
• At least 4 years of experience programming with Python, Go, Scala, or Java

Preferred Qualifications

• 6 years of experience deploying scalable and responsible AI solutions on cloud platforms (e.g. AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, or equivalent private cloud)
• Experience designing, developing, delivering, and supporting AI services
• Experience developing AI and ML algorithms or technologies (e.g. LLM Inference, Similarity Search and VectorDBs, Guardrails, Memory) using Python, C++, C#, Java, or Golang
• Experience developing and applying state‑of‑the‑art techniques for optimizing training and inference software to improve hardware utilization, latency, throughput, and cost
• Passion for staying abreast of the latest AI research and AI systems, and judiciously apply novel techniques in production

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

McLean, VA: $197,300 - $225,100 for Lead AI Engineer

New York, NY: $215,200 - $245,600 for Lead AI Engineer

Richmond, VA: $179,400 - $204,700 for Lead AI Engineer

San Francisco, CA: $215,200 - $245,600 for Lead AI Engineer

San Jose, CA: $215,200 - $245,600 for Lead AI Engineer

Candidates hired to work in other locations will be subject to the pay range associated with that location, and 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 also eligible to earn performance based incentive compensation, which may include cash bonus(es) and/or long term incentives (LTI). Incentives could be discretionary or non discretionary depending on the plan.

Capital One offers a comprehensive, competitive, and inclusive set of health, financial and other benefits that support your total well‑being. Learn more at the Capital One Careers website (https://www.capitalonecareers.com/benefits) . Eligibility varies based on full or part‑time status, exempt or non‑exempt status, and management level.

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.