Senior Associate, Data Scientist - Applied AI

AIToolboard; Alexandria (VA); On-site; USD 135,600 - 154,800; Full time

Job summary

Capital One is seeking a Senior Associate, Data Scientist - Applied AI in McLean, VA to join the Commercial Bank Data Science Applied AI team. You’ll work on Generative AI capabilities, Retrieval Augmented Generation, and large-scale data analysis to unlock business value.

The role emphasizes collaboration with data scientists, engineers, and product managers, applying open-source tools and AWS to build and deploy models that drive measurable outcomes.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in a quantitative field with required experience in data analytics
• Proven experience with Python/Scala/R and ML model development
• Experience working with AWS and large-scale data processing

Responsibilities

• Partner with cross-functional teams to deliver data science products that customers love
• Utilize Python, AWS, Spark, and related tools to derive insights from large datasets
• Build and validate ML models through all development stages, from design to deployment
• Communicate technical results in business terms to inform decisions

Skills

AWS

Python

Scala

R

Machine learning

SQL

Education

Bachelor's Degree in a quantitative field

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

Master’s Degree in STEM or PhD in STEM

Tools

H2O

Spark

Job description

Jobs / Senior Associate, Data Scientist - Applied AI

Senior Associate, Data Scientist - Applied AI

Full-time and Part-time

About the Role

Senior Associate, Data Scientist - Applied AIData 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

The Commercial Bank Data Science Applied AI team is at the forefront of enabling Generative AI capabilities within the Commercial Bank. We focus on cutting-edge techniques such as Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), Context Engineering, Prompt Engineering, and LLM Fine Tuning. The ideal candidate will be deeply passionate about Generative AI and possess prior experience in AI from either a professional or academic background.

In this role, you will:

• 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 the 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:

• 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.
• A data guru. “Big data” doesn’t faze you. You have the skills to retrieve, combine, and analyze data from a variety of sources and structures. You know understanding the data is often the key to great data science.

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 2 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) or an MBA with a quantitative concentration

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master’s Degree in “STEM” field (Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics), or PhD in “STEM” field (Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics)
• Experience working with AWS
• At least 2 years’ experience in Python, Scala, or R
• At least 2 years’ experience with machine learning
• At least 2 years’ experience with SQL
• Prior experience in AI, information retrieval, or NLPCapital 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: $135,600 - $154,800 for Sr Assoc, Data ScienceCandidates 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 discretio