Senior Director, Distinguished Engineer (CORE)

Senior Director, Distinguished Engineer (CORE)

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.

Join us to define the future of observability at enterprise scale - where OpenTelemetry meets Generative AI. You'll drive strategy and innovation across our engineering ecosystem, shaping how millions of signals become real-time intelligence for capital one line of business. As a Distinguished Engineer, you'll influence engineering direction across product lines, architect deep telemetry intelligence, and partner with senior leaders to transform how we see, understand, and act on technology operations data in the cloud.

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.

Join us to define the future of observability at enterprise scale - where OpenTelemetry meets Generative AI. You'll drive strategy and innovation across our engineering ecosystem, shaping how millions of signals become real-time intelligence for capital one line of business. As a Distinguished Engineer, you'll influence engineering direction across product lines, architect deep telemetry intelligence, and partner with senior leaders to transform how we see, understand, and act on technology operations data in cloud.

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
• 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
    
    • 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
• 10+ years of experience designing, implementing, and operating observability solutions for large-scale, distributed, and highly available systems.
• 5+ years of experience with Open Source Observability tools such as OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Grafana etc. Experience with emerging observability trends and technologies, such as eBPF, zero-code instrumentation, or AI/ML-driven anomaly detection is a plus.
• 3+ years of experience with public or private cloud technologies

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.

McLean, VA: $314,800 - $359,300 for Sr Distinguished Engineer

Plano, TX: $286,200 - $326,700 for Sr Distinguished Engineer

Richmond, VA: $286,200 - $326,700 for Sr Distinguished Engineer

San Francisco, CA: $343,400 - $392,000 for Sr Distinguished 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- or via email at All information you provide will be kept confidential and will be used only to the extent required to provide needed reasonable accommodations.

For technical support or questions about Capital One's recruiting process, please send an email to

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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).