Staff Full-Stack Engineer

Capital One National Association; Little Rock Township (IL); On-site; USD 245,000 - 279,000; Full time

Job summary

Capital One is seeking a Staff Engineer to drive the bold technical vision for our cloud-native platforms. You will lead architecture across domains, modernize systems into microservices, and evangelize scalable design while mentoring engineers and contributing hands-on coding.

You will collaborate with senior leaders, influence API standards, and champion AI tooling to accelerate development while delivering robust, secure, and compliant solutions across international rails.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related field.
• 7+ years of software engineering, architecture, cloud, and data experience.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS/Azure/GCP) and data architecture.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical contribution and architecture across platforms.
• Decompose complex problems into practical, scalable solutions.
• Mentor engineers and drive professional development across teams.
• Drive modernization of monolithic systems to microservices and event-driven platforms.
• Collaborate with architecture leaders to define platform strategy and API standards.

Skills

Software engineering

Solution architecture

Cloud computing

Data architecture

Go/Java/JavaScript

AI tooling

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related field

Master’s Degree in CS or Software Eng

Tools

AWS

Azure

GCP

JavaScript/TypeScript

Job description

As a Staff Engineer at Capital One, you will be 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 Staff 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 delivering 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 engineers and actively recruiting to keep building our community.

Staff 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 materials 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.

The Global Payment Network (GPN) Digital Payments Technology organization designs, builds, and operates the mission-critical systems and infrastructure that seamlessly power complex money movement across domestic and international rails. We build and operate a high-volume, low-latency, and highly resilient distributed ecosystem that is simultaneously secure, performant, accurate, and nimble. The Digital Payments team provides a tokenization platform that is critical in enabling secure commerce both online and with devices including ApplePay and GooglePay. Digital Payments are a rapidly evolving space with constant innovation in how consumers pay.

This team operates with a startup mindset backed by enterprise scale. We are 100% cloud-native, deeply committed to engineering excellence, and aggressive in adopting cutting-edge AI tooling (including Claude Code, Windsurf, and custom AI agents) to dramatically accelerate our development lifecycle. You’ll be working hands-on with Senior Lead Engineers that are building the resilient, ultra-low-latency backbone of future global commerce.

What You’ll Do:

• 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
• Drive modernization of monolithic systems into microservice architectures and event-driven platforms
• Collaborate with senior engineering and architecture leaders to define long-term platform strategy and API standards
• Serve as a force-multiplier for the team, balancing deep, hands-on technical contribution and innovation with mentoring and elevating the skills of peers and junior engineers.
• Lead cross-divisional projects and impacts that promote technological best practices and enhancements

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree or higher in Computer Science or a related quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Operations Research, Analytics, Mathematics, Engineering)
• At least 7 years of experience in all of the following:
  • Software engineering and solution architecture
  • Enterprise architecture and design patterns
  • Cloud computing (AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud)
  • Data architecture

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master’s Degree in Computer Science or Software Engineering
• 10+ years of experience in all of the following:
  • Software engineering and solution architecture
  • Enterprise architecture and design patterns
  • Web technologies (JavaScript, TypeScript and SPA frameworks)
  • Designing and building distributed HPC and ML systems
  • Cloud computing (AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud)
  • Data architecture
• 10+ years of professional experience coding in commonly used languages like Go, Java, JavaScript/Typescript, Python, Rust, C#, Scala
• 8+ years of experience with database and database management systems
• 10+ years of professional experience in the full lifecycle of system development, from conception through architecture, implementation, testing, deployment and production support
• 8+ years of experience with public cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure), cloud-based productivity tools, or virtualization technologies
• 10+ years of experience with Networking protocols and integration with third party distributed systems
• 5+ years of experience mentoring senior engineers and driving professional development within technical teams
• 2+ years of experience leading cross-domain architectural reviews and establishing coding and design standards
• Expertise in the strategic application of agentic AI coding tools to solve systemic development challenges

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. 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.

Chicago, IL: $244,700 - $279,200 for Staff Full-stack EngineerMcLean, VA: $269,100 - $307,200 for Staff Full-stack EngineerPlano, TX: $244,700 - $279,200 for Staff Full-stack EngineerRichmond, VA: $244,700 - $279,200 for Staff Full-stack EngineerRiverwoods, IL: $244,700 - $279,200 for Staff Full-stack Engineer

Candidates 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 discretionary depending on the plan.

Capital One offers a comprehensive, competitive, and inclusive set of health, financial and other benefits that support your total well-being. Learn more at the Capital One Careers website. Eligibility varies based on full or part-time status, exempt or non-exempt status, and management level.

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 the requirements of applicable laws regarding criminal background inquiries, including, to the extent applicable, Article 23-A of the New York Correction Law; San Francisco, California Police Code Article 49, Sections 4901-4920; New York City’s Fair Chance Act; Philadelphia’s Fair Criminal Records Screening Act; and other applicable federal, state, and local laws and regulations regarding criminal background inquiries.

If you have visited our website in search of information on employment opportunities or to apply for a position, and you require an accommodation, please contact Capital One Recruiting at 1-800-304-9102 or via email at [e-mail].

For technical support or questions about Capital One's recruiting process, please send an email to [e-mail].

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Capital One Financial is made up of several different entities. Please note that any position posted in Canada is for Capital One Canada, any position posted in the United Kingdom is for Capital One Europe and any position posted in the Philippines is for Capital One Philippines Service Corp. (COPSSC).