Sr. Distinguished Engineer

Capital One; Cambridge (MA); On-site; USD 314,800 - 359,300; Full time

Job summary

Capital One is seeking a Senior Distinguished Engineer to drive architecture and innovation across cloud-based banking platforms. You will mentor engineers, influence non-functional requirements and lead strategic technical initiatives with a focus on scalability, performance and real-time insights.

Collaborate with ML, product, and people-leader teams to deliver practical, reusable solutions that impact business outcomes.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required with at least 9 years of software engineering and architecture experience.
• Experience with web technologies (JavaScript/TypeScript) and full ML lifecycle.
• Cloud experience (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) and data architecture expertise.

Responsibilities

• Articulate and evangelize a bold technical vision for your domain.
• Decompose complex problems into practical and operational solutions.
• Ensure the quality of technical design and implementation.
• Serve as an authoritative expert on non‑functional system characteristics (performance, scalability, operability).
• Continue learning and injecting advanced technical knowledge into our community.
• Handle several projects simultaneously, balancing time to maximize impact.
• Mentor engineering talent and coach the community to raise technical excellence.
• Engage on high‑order problems like multi‑tenancy, real‑time insights, anomaly detection and orchestration.

Skills

Web technologies

ML lifecycle

Cloud computing

Data architecture

Software engineering

Enterprise architecture

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master's degree in CS or related

Job description

As a Sr. Distinguished Engineer at Capital One, you will be a part of a community of technical experts working to define the future of banking in the cloud. You will work alongside our talented team of developers, machine learning experts, product managers and people leaders. Our Distinguished Engineers are leading experts in their domains, helping devise practical and reusable solutions to complex problems. You will drive innovation at multiple levels, helping optimize business outcomes while driving towards strong technology solutions.

At Capital One, we believe diversity of thought strengthens our ability to influence, collaborate and provide the most innovative solutions across organizational boundaries. You will promote a culture of engineering excellence, and strike the right balance between lending expertise and providing an inclusive environment where the ideas of others can be heard and championed. You will lead the way in creating next‑generation talent for Capital One Tech, mentoring internal talent and actively recruiting to keep building our community.

Distinguished Engineers are expected to lead through technical contribution. You will operate as a trusted advisor for our key technologies, platforms and capability domains, creating clear and concise communications, code samples, blog posts and other material to share knowledge both inside and outside the organization. You will specialize in a particular subject area, but your input and impact will be sought and expected throughout the organization.

In this role you will work with teams across the company to create real‑time and intelligent finance through an AI‑powered platform for end‑to‑end business process automation, offering transparent, real‑time workflow observability with natural language data interactions. You won't just execute a roadmap, you will be a strategist defining which modern technologies will solve problems our stakeholders haven’t even imagined yet.

If you are ready to provide thought leadership and build engineering excellence across Capital One’s engineering teams, come join us in our mission to change banking for good.

Key Responsibilities

• Articulate and evangelize a bold technical vision for your domain
• Decompose complex problems into practical and operational solutions
• Ensure the quality of technical design and implementation
• Serve as an authoritative expert on non‑functional system characteristics, such as performance, scalability and operability
• Continue learning and injecting advanced technical knowledge into our community
• Handle several projects simultaneously, balancing your time to maximize impact
• Act as a role model and mentor within the tech community, helping to coach and strengthen the technical expertise and know‑how of our engineering and product community
• Be hands‑on and at the forefront of high‑order problems such as multi‑tenancy, right‑time insights, centralized anomaly detection and action, and agentic patterns for Finance business orchestration.
• Mentor and upskill the senior engineering talent within the organization, fostering a culture of technical excellence and innovation, and ensuring our innovation is not just fast, but scalable and resilient.
• Additional responsibilities added at hiring manager’s discretion

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree
• At least 9 years of experience in
  • General software
    • Software engineering and solution architecture
    • Enterprise architecture and design patterns
  • Software specializations
    • Web technologies (JavaScript, TypeScript and SPA frameworks)
    • Full ML development lifecycle using AI and ML frameworks
  • Other specializations
    • Cloud computing (AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud)
    • Data architecture

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's Degree in Computer Science or a related field
• 10+ years of professional experience coding in commonly used languages like Java, Python, Go, JavaScript/TypeScript, Swift, etc.
• 10+ years of professional experience in the full lifecycle of system development, from conception through architecture, implementation, testing, deployment and production support
• 3+ years of experience with public or private cloud technologies
• Experience leveraging interactive AI tooling to accelerate productivity, utilizing capabilities beyond basic code completion

Benefits and Compensation

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

• Cambridge, MA: $314,800 - $359,300
• McLean, VA: $314,800 - $359,300
• New York, NY: $343,400 - $392,000

Equal Opportunity Employer

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.

Accommodations

If 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.