Distinguished Engineer (Card Tech)

Capital One • McLean, VA

1d • $263,900 - $328,500

About The Position

Distinguished Engineer (Card Tech) As a 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 partner with the Capital One Travel Data & Personalization team to architect the next generation of our Travel Intelligence Platform, serving as the primary architect for the foundational data schemas and orchestration layers that power our entire travel ecosystem. Your mission is to move beyond reactive tools by establishing a holistic Agentic AI framework—a vision where reasoning-based agents bridge the gap between high-scale data orchestration and real-world execution. You will be responsible for building an ecosystem that simultaneously enables classic machine learning model development for predictive insights while scaling agentic systems to automate complex workflows. This enables proactive journey management, where AI anticipates needs and prepares recommendations while incorporating human-in-the-loop approval when necessary. A key component of your strategy will be designing our growth marketing engine, where you will lead the strategic selection and architectural integration of our technology stack to ensure seamless, hyper-personalized, and value-optimized customer acquisition. By unifying these intelligent systems with a robust and scalable data architecture, you will transform how millions of customers discover, book, and experience travel within our premium portfolio. 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.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree
• At least 9 years of experience in software engineering (including solution architecture and enterprise design patterns).
• At least 7 years of experience in Data Engineering or Machine Learning Engineering, specifically building and maintaining large-scale production data pipelines (PySpark, SQL, Airflow).
• At least 5 years of experience in Cloud Native Architecture (AWS preferred), including container orchestration (Kubernetes/KubeFlow) and serverless design.
• At least 3 years of experience in a Technical Leadership role (Principal, Staff, or Distinguished Engineer), leading cross-functional initiatives without direct reporting lines.

Nice To Haves

• 10+ years of experience in Software Engineering and Solution Architecture with a focus on high-scale data systems.
• 3+ years of experience in Machine Learning Engineering , specifically implementing LLMs or Agentic workflows in production.
• Deep expertise in Data Design (Delta Lake, Snowflake, or Iceberg) and Streaming (Kafka).
• Proven track record of building MarTech or Personalization engines that scale to millions of users.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to translate "Agentic AI" concepts into business value for CX & Growth Marketing leadership.

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

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees