Principal Associate, Data Scientist - Card Finance Innovation Team

Capital One; McLean (VA); On-site; USD 161,800 - 184,600; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health benefits

Performance-based incentives

Sponsorship for employment authority

Job summary

Capital One in McLean, VA is seeking a Principal Associate, Data Scientist for the Card Finance Innovation Team. You will partner with data scientists, engineers, and product managers to elevate forecasting and decision-making across billions of records, delivering models and insights that influence card offers and risk strategies.

You’ll build and productionize ML models using Python, Spark, H2O, Snowflake, and AWS, translating complex data work into clear business impact while guiding

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in a quantitative field or higher with data analytics experience.
• 3+ years of experience with Python, Scala, or R.
• 3+ years of machine learning experience.
• 3+ years of SQL experience.
• 1+ year of experience using AWS.

Responsibilities

• Partner with cross-functional data scientists, software engineers, and product managers to deliver a product customers love.
• Leverage Python, Conda, AWS, H2O, Spark, and more to reveal insights hidden within large data sets.
• Build machine learning models through design, training, evaluation, validation, and deployment.
• Translate the complexity of your work into tangible business goals.

Skills

Python

Scala

R

Machine learning

SQL

AWS

Education

Bachelor’s Degree in a quantitative field

Master’s Degree in a quantitative field or MBA with a quantitative concentration

PhD in a quantitative field

Tools

AWS

Spark

H2O

Snowflake

Conda

Job description

Principal Associate, Data Scientist – Card Finance Innovation Team

Data is at the center of everything we do. As a startup that disrupted the credit card industry by individually personalizing every credit card offer using statistical modeling and relational databases, we have grown into a Fortune 200 company and a leader in data‑driven decision‑making. As a Data Scientist at Capital One, you’ll be part of a team that’s leading the next wave of disruption at a whole new scale, using the latest in computing and machine learning technologies and operating across billions of customer records to unlock opportunities that help everyday people save money, time, and hardship in their financial lives.

Team Description

As a vital part of the Innovation team, you will help power the core forecasting engine that enables Card Finance to seamlessly navigate monthly outlooks, annual budgets, and long‑term strategic planning. We blend operational excellence—process automation, model risk governance, and real‑time support—with cutting‑edge development, positioning you to spearhead the architectural design and deployment of our next‑generation forecasting ecosystem using a modern tech stack of Python, OneLake, and Snowflake.

Responsibilities

• Partner with a cross‑functional team of data scientists, software engineers, and product managers to deliver a product customers love.
• Leverage a broad stack of technologies—Python, Conda, AWS, H2O, Spark, and more—to reveal insights hidden within huge volumes of numeric and textual data.
• Build machine learning models through all phases of development, from design through training, evaluation, validation, and implementation.
• Flex your interpersonal skills to translate the complexity of your work into tangible business goals.

The Ideal Candidate is

• Customer first: you love the process of analyzing and creating, and you share our passion for doing the right thing for our customers.
• Creative: you thrive on bringing definition to big, undefined problems, love asking questions, and push hard to find answers.
• Technical: you’re comfortable with open‑source languages and passionate about developing further, with hands‑on experience building data science solutions using open‑source tools and cloud computing platforms.
• Statistically‑minded: you’ve built models, validated them, and backtested them; you know how to interpret a confusion matrix or a ROC curve, and you have experience with clustering, classification, sentiment analysis, time series, and deep learning.

Basic Qualifications

• Currently holds, or is in the process of obtaining, one of the following with an expected completion before the scheduled start date:
  • Bachelor’s Degree in a quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Operations Research, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related field) plus 5 years of experience performing data analytics.
  • Master’s Degree in a quantitative field or an MBA with a quantitative concentration plus 3 years of experience performing data analytics.
  • PhD in a quantitative field plus 3 years of experience performing data analytics.
• At least 3 years of experience in Python, Scala, or R.
• At least 3 years of experience with machine learning.
• At least 3 years of experience with SQL.
• At least 1 year of experience working with AWS.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s Degree in a STEM field (Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics) plus 3 years of experience in data analytics, or PhD in a STEM field.

Eligibility and Compensation

Capital One will consider sponsoring a qualified applicant for employment authorization. The minimum and maximum full‑time annual salaries for this role are listed below by location. McLean, VA: $161,800 - $184,600 for Principal Associate, Data Science. This role is also eligible to earn performance‑based incentive compensation, which may include cash bonus(es) and/or long‑term incentives (LTI). Capital One offers a comprehensive, competitive, and inclusive set of health, financial, and other benefits that support your total well‑being.

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

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. If you have visited our website in search of information on employment opportunities or to apply for a position, and you require an accommodation, please contact Capital One Recruiting for assistance.