Principal Data Scientist - Recommendation & Personalization Systems

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

Benefits offered by this job

Performance-based incentives

Health benefits

Total well-being programs

Job summary

Capital One is hiring a Principal Data Scientist for Recommendation & Personalization Systems in McLean, VA. You will collaborate with data scientists, software engineers, and product managers to build scalable personalized recommendations across Capital One’s web and mobile apps.

You’ll design and deploy high-impact ML models using Python, Spark, and cloud technologies, translating data insights into strategic business decisions and measurable customer outcomes.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in a quantitative field with 5+ years analytics experience.
• Master's Degree in a quantitative field or MBA with quantitative concentration with 3+ years analytics experience.
• PhD in a quantitative field with 3+ years analytics experience.

Responsibilities

• Partner with cross-functional teams to deliver customer-loved products.
• Leverage Python, Conda, AWS, H2O, Spark to reveal insights from large data.
• Design, train, evaluate, and implement ML models across development phases.
• Translate complex analyses into business goals for stakeholders.

Skills

Python

SQL

Scala

R

Machine Learning

AWS

Education

Bachelor's Degree in a quantitative field

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

PhD in a quantitative field

Tools

Conda

H2O

Spark

Job description

Principal Data Scientist - Recommendation & Personalization Systems

Data is at the center of everything we do. 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 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 improve their financial lives.

Team

Join an elite Applied AI team within AI Foundations, operating at the intersection of deep research and massive real‑world impact. We are pioneering the next generation of personalized customer experiences across Capital One's web and mobile applications, leveraging high‑scale ML models. Our core mission involves architecting and deploying cutting‑edge personalized recommendation engines powered by original research into homegrown Foundation Models, advanced reinforcement learning techniques, and a state‑of‑the‑art scalable architecture built for billions of interactions.

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—including Python, Conda, AWS, H2O, Spark, and more—to reveal insights hidden within huge volumes of numeric and textual data.
• Design, train, evaluate, validate, and implement machine learning models through all phases of development.
• Translate the complexity of your work into tangible business goals and communicate findings to stakeholders.

Ideal Candidate

• Customer‑first mindset, focusing on making the right decision for customers.
• Innovative and continually research and evaluate emerging technologies, staying current on state‑of‑the‑art methods and seeking opportunities to apply them.
• Technical proficiency with open‑source languages and passion for developing further, with hands‑on experience building data science solutions on open‑source tools and cloud‑computing platforms.
• Data guru: comfortable with “big data,” skilled at retrieving, combining, and analyzing data from diverse sources and structures.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in a quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Operations Research, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or related) 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.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s or PhD in a STEM field.
• Experience working with AWS.
• 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.

Salary and Benefits

Annual salary ranges (full‑time):

• McLean, VA: $161,800 – $184,600
• New York, NY: $176,500 – $201,400
• San Jose, CA: $176,500 – $201,400

Eligible for performance‑based incentive compensation, which may include cash bonuses and/or long‑term incentives. Capital One offers a comprehensive, competitive, and inclusive set of health, financial, and other benefits that support your total well‑being.

Equal 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 and will consider qualified applicants with a criminal history in a manner consistent with applicable laws regarding background inquiries.