Sr. Lead AI Engineer (FM Hosting, LLM Inference)

Capital One; New York (NY); On-site; USD 170,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Capital One is seeking a Sr. Lead AI Engineer (FM Hosting, LLM Inference) to advance responsible AI across banking.

You will partner with engineers, researchers, and product teams to design and scale AI-powered experiences and infrastructure. The role focuses on foundation models, inference, guardrails, and observability, using PyTorch, Hugging Face, and vector databases to deliver production-ready AI at scale.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree and 6+ years of AI/ML experience.
• Master's degree and 4+ years of AI/ML experience.
• Strong Python/Scala/Java programming background.
• Experience with cloud AI deployments and model inference.

Responsibilities

• Partner with cross-functional teams to deliver AI-powered products.
• Design, develop, test, deploy, and support AI software components including LLM inference and guardrails.
• Lead research and productionization of AI systems, optimizing performance and cost.
• Contribute to the long-term roadmap of foundational AI systems at Capital One.
• Mentor engineers and influence stakeholders.

Skills

Python

Go

Scala

Java

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, AI, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related fields

Master's degree in the same fields

Tools

AWS Ultraclusters

Hugging Face

VectorDBs

Nemo Guardrails

PyTorch

Job description

Overview

Sr. Lead AI Engineer (FM Hosting, LLM Inference). At Capital One, we are creating responsible and reliable AI systems that are changing banking for good. We use machine learning to craft real-time, personalized customer experiences and build scalable, high-performance AI infrastructure.

Team Description

The Intelligent Foundations and Experiences (IFX) team is at the center of bringing our vision for AI to life. We collaborate with partners across the company to advance the state of the art in science and AI engineering, building proprietary solutions that deliver value to millions of customers.

Responsibilities

• Partner with cross‑functional teams of engineers, research scientists, technical program managers, and product managers to deliver AI‑powered products that change how associates and customers interact with Capital One.
• Design, develop, test, deploy, and support AI software components including foundation model training, large language model inference, similarity search, guardrails, model evaluation, experimentation, governance, and observability.
• Leverage a broad stack of open‑source and SaaS AI technologies such as AWS Ultraclusters, Hugging Face, VectorDBs, Nemo Guardrails, PyTorch, and others.
• Invent and introduce state‑of‑the‑art LLM optimization techniques to improve performance, scalability, cost, latency, and throughput of large‑scale production AI systems.
• Contribute to the technical vision and long‑term roadmap of foundational AI systems at Capital One.

Ideal Candidate

We seek a passionate systems builder who takes pride in high quality work and is dedicated to doing the right thing. You will help change banking for good by staying abreast of the latest research, interpreting scientific publications, and applying novel techniques in production. You thrive on clarity, ask probing questions, share ideas freely, and possess deep technical expertise in engineering, mathematics, hardware, and software. You adapt quickly, tackle undefined problems, and lead with confidence.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, AI, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related fields plus at least 6 years of experience developing AI and ML algorithms or technologies.
• Master’s degree in the same fields plus at least 4 years of experience developing AI and ML algorithms or technologies.
• At least 6 years of experience programming with Python, Go, Scala, or Java.

Preferred Qualifications

• 7 years of experience deploying scalable and responsible AI solutions on cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, or equivalent private cloud).
• Experience designing, developing, integrating, delivering, and supporting complex AI systems.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and mentor an engineering team and influence cross‑functional stakeholders.
• Experience developing AI and ML algorithms or technologies (e.g., LLM Inference, Similarity Search and VectorDBs, Guardrails, Memory) using Python, C++, C#, Java, or Golang.
• Experience developing and applying state‑of‑the‑art techniques for optimizing training and inference software to improve hardware utilization, latency, throughput, and cost.
• Passion for staying abreast of the latest AI research and applying novel techniques in production.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to articulate complex AI concepts to peers.

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 and will consider employment for qualified applicants with a criminal history in a manner consistent with applicable laws. For technical support or questions about the recruiting process, please email [e-mail].