Senior Director, Data Engineer

DataJobs; McLean (VA); On-site; USD 315,000 - 359,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Performance based incentive

Comprehensive benefits package

Job summary

Capital One seeks a Senior Director, Data Engineer to own the enterprise strategy for identity analytics, access decisioning, and AI/ML security. This on-site role in McLean, VA leads a 50+ person organization spanning Data Engineering, ML, GenAI, and Security Products, and sets engineering standards for scalable delivery.

You will guide architectures, data pipelines, and MLOps, shaping real-time data systems and risk-aware AI solutions while partnering with C-suite and the CISO to fund

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or related quantitative field.
• 9+ years of data engineering experience.
• 7+ years of people management experience.
• 7+ years programming in Python, Java, or Scala.
• 5+ years driving technical delivery of roadmap features.
• 6+ years designing and developing data pipelines.
• 4+ years data modeling and end-to-end data solutions in relational and non-relational databases.

Responsibilities

• Own enterprise strategy and multi-year roadmap for identity analytics and AI/ML security.
• Lead and grow a 50+ person organization across Data Eng, ML, GenAI, and Security Products.
• Set technical direction by reviewing architectures and data systems.

Skills

Data engineering

People management

Python

Java

Scala

Roadmap delivery

Data modeling

Education

Bachelor’s Degree in CS or related field

Tools

AWS

Azure

GCP

EMR

Spark

Databricks

Job description

Lead the engineering strategy behind cloud-based identity analytics and AI/ML security platforms for banking, with a role designed for impact across multi-year programs. This onsite position in McLean, VA offers performance-based incentive compensation and a comprehensive benefits package to support total well-being.

The Senior Director, Data Engineer will own the technical and architectural direction for identity analytics, access decisioning, and AI/ML security, guiding teams to deliver scalable, real-time data and machine learning systems. You will also drive enterprise readiness for emerging cyber risk from frontier AI models and agentic attack patterns.

Responsibilities

• Own the enterprise strategy and multi-year roadmap for identity analytics, access decisioning, and AI/ML security platforms, aligning AI/ML investment to business, audit, and regulatory priorities and partnering with C-suite and CISO-org stakeholders to fund next-generation capabilities.
• Lead and grow a 50+ person organization spanning Data Engineering, ML, Generative AI, and Security Products, including managers and senior individual contributors, while hiring, developing, and retaining top technical talent and setting engineering standards for well-managed delivery.
• Set technical direction hands-on by reviewing architectures, model designs, and system trade-offs, staying close to code and data to make high-quality decisions under uncertainty.
• Architect low-latency, event-driven systems for real-time identity decisioning and threat detection using streaming telemetry, behavioral signals, and contextual graph data.
• Design, build, and maintain robust ML infrastructure and pipelines for end-to-end workflows including feature extraction, training, testing, guardrails, evaluation, deployment, and both real-time and batch inference with high performance, scalability, and reliability.
• Drive the evolution of MLOps with automated, metrics-backed deployment workflows, integration validation and testing systems, and scalable monitoring and observability for models in production.
• Build the intelligence layer for agentic and non-human identity using behavioral analytics, ML-based intent determination, and context graphs to support secure AI agents and workload identities.
• Apply state-of-the-art LLM and GenAI techniques for production threat-intelligence summarization, automated incident triage, and adaptive access-policy recommendation, including optimization to improve scalability, cost, latency, and throughput for large-scale AI systems.
• Operate an automated governance function with pipelines from enterprise and IGA platforms, operationalizing NIST controls through continuous control validation and audit-ready evidence.
• Lead enterprise readiness for emerging cyber risk posed by frontier AI models and agentic attack patterns.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or a related quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Operations Research, Analytics, Mathematics, Engineering).
• At least 9 years of experience in data engineering.
• At least 7 years of people management experience.
• At least 7 years of experience programming with Python, Java, or Scala.
• At least 5 years of experience driving technical delivery of roadmap features.
• At least 6 years of experience designing and developing data pipelines.
• At least 4 years of experience in data modeling and designing end-to-end data solutions using both relational and non-relational database systems.

Technologies

Python, Java, Scala, NIST, AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, EMR, Spark, Glue, Databricks, Airflow, Dagster, Monte Carlo, Splunk, MongoDB, Cassandra, DynamoDB, Snowflake, Redshift, SQL

Benefits

• Performance based incentive compensation, which may include cash bonus(es) and/or long term incentives (LTI).
• Comprehensive, competitive, and inclusive set of health, financial and other benefits that support total well-being.

Compensation

McLean, VA: USD 314,800 - 359,300 per year for Sr. Director, Data Engineer

Additional locations: New York, NY (USD 343,400 - 392,000), Plano, TX (USD 286,200 - 326,700), Richmond, VA (USD 286,200 - 326,700)

Other Information

• Capital One will consider sponsoring a new qualified applicant for employment authorization for this position.
• 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 applicable laws.
• If you need an accommodation, contact Capital One Recruiting at 1-800-304-9102 or [e-mail].
• For technical support or questions about Capital One’s recruiting process, email [e-mail].

Posted: 9/25/2026