Principal Associate, Data Scientist - People Strategy & Analytics Capital One · McLean · Data Science $161,800–$184,600 3mo ago

Dataroles; McLean, Northern (VA, KY); Hybrid; USD 162,000 - 185,000; Full time

Job summary

Capital One is seeking a Principal Associate, Data Scientist in McLean, VA, to lead advanced analytics for People Strategy & Analytics. The role focuses on building NLP and ML solutions, leveraging LLMs, and driving HR tools using a broad tech stack, including Python, SQL, AWS, and modern ML libraries.

The ideal candidate has strong data analytics, ML, NLP skills, and a passion for applying AI to talent decisions, with a proven track record in developing scalable data science solutions.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in a quantitative field plus 5 years of analytics experience.
• Master's Degree in a quantitative field plus 3 years of analytics experience.
• PhD in a quantitative field.

Responsibilities

• Build NLP and ML models through all development phases from design to implementation.
• Apply open-source LLMs using prompt engineering, RAG, and evaluation metrics.
• Collaborate with data scientists, software engineers, and product managers to deliver HR tools and AI-powered products.
• Utilize Python, SQL, AWS, LangChain, Hugging Face Transformers, VectorDBs, PyTorch/TensorFlow, and related tech to analyze large datasets.
• Translate complex data science work into actionable business outcomes with stakeholders.

Skills

Data Analytics

Machine Learning

NLP

Prompt Engineering

Cross-functional Collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree in quantitative field

Master's degree in quantitative field

PhD in quantitative field

Tools

Python

SQL

AWS

LangChain

Hugging Face Transformers

VectorDBs

PyTorch/TensorFlow

Job description

Principal Associate, Data Scientist - People Strategy & Analytics

Data is at the center of everything we do. As a startup, we disrupted the credit card industry by individually personalizing every credit card offer using statistical modeling and the relational database, cutting edge technology in 1988! Fast-forward a few years, and this little innovation and our passion for data has skyrocketed us to a Fortune 200 company and a leader in the world of 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 the big opportunities that help everyday people save money, time and agony in their financial lives.

Team Description

People Strategy & Analytics brings data, analytics, and insights to shape critical talent decisions and strategy at Capital One. We work closely with HR partners and senior executives in shaping talent policy, automating real-time data, and improving talent decision-making. The team is comprised of people with diverse skills and backgrounds including: data analysts, data scientists, business analysts, HR specialists, project managers, and industrial/organizational psychologists.

As a Data Scientist on Capital One’s People Strategy & Analytics team, you’ll be on the leading edge of applying analytics to talent, combining artificial intelligence, machine learning, and social science to build models that seek to understand associate behavior, improve HR efficiency and tools, and inform strategies aimed at expanding Capital One’s talent advantage.

Role Description

In this role, you will:

• Build natural language processing and machine learning models through all phases of development, from design through training, evaluation, validation, and implementation

• Apply expertise in using open source large language models (LLMs) through prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and evaluation metric frameworks for business specific applications

• Partner with a cross-functional team of data scientists, software engineers, business analysts, and product managers to deliver industry leading HR tools and AI-powered products

• Leverage a broad stack of technologies — Python, SQL, AWS, LangChain, Hugging Face Transformers, VectorDBs, Pytorch/TensorFlow, and more — to reveal the insights hidden within large volumes of numeric and textual data

• Flex your interpersonal skills to collaborate with internal stakeholders, translating complex data science work into tangible, aligned business outcomes.

The Ideal Candidate is:

• Passionate about human capital: You are excited by the value we can add to our company and our associates, and are inspired to help make a large positive impact.

• Innovative. You continually research and evaluate emerging technologies. You stay current on published state-of-the-art methods, technologies, and applications and seek out opportunities to apply them.

• Creative. You thrive on bringing definition to big, undefined problems. You love asking questions and pushing hard to find answers. You’re not afraid to share a new idea.

• Technical. You’re comfortable with open-source languages and are passionate about developing further. You have hands-on experience developing 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. You have experience with clustering, classification, sentiment analysis, time series, and deep learning.

Basic Qualifications:

• Currently has, or is in the process of obtaining one of the following with an expectation that the required degree will be obtained on or before the scheduled start date:

  • A Bachelor's Degree in a quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Operations Research, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related quantitative field) plus 5 years of experience performing data analytics

  • A Master's Degree in a quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Operations Research, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related quantitative field) plus 3 years of experience performing data analytics

  • A PhD in a quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Operations Research, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related quantitative field)

Preferred Qualifications:

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

• At least 1 year of experience working with AWS

• At least 3 years’ experience in Python

• At least 3 years’ experience with machine learning

• At least 3 years’ experience with SQL

• At least 2 years’ experience with relational databases such as Snowflake

• At least 2 years’ experience with AI/ML tools and ecosystems such as Hugging Face, VectorDBs or Pytorch/TensorFlow

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

The minimum and maximum full-time annual salaries for this role are listed below, by location. Please note that this salary information is solely for candidates hired to perform work within one of these locations, and refers to the amount Capital One is willing to pay at the time of this posting. Salaries for part-time roles will be prorated based upon the agreed upon number of hours to be regularly worked.

McLean, VA: $161,800 - $184,600 for Princ Associate, Data Science

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. Eligibility varies based on full or part-time status, exempt or non-exempt status, and management level.

This role is expected to accept applications for a minimum of 5 business days.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.

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 at 1-800-304-9102 or via email at [e-mail]. All information you provide will be kept confidential and will be used only to the extent required to provide needed reasonable accommodations.

For technical support or questions about Capital One's recruiting process, please send an email to [e-mail]

Capital One does not provide, endorse nor guarantee and is not liable for third-party products, services, educational tools or other information available through this site.

Capital One Financial is made up of several different entities. Please note that any position posted in Canada is for Capital One Canada, any position posted in the United Kingdom is for Capital One Europe and any position posted in the Philippines is for Capital One Philippines Service Corp. (COPSSC).