Principal Associate, Data Science (Generative AI) - Capital One Auto Finance

Principal Associate, Data Science (Generative AI) - Capital One Auto Finance

Data is at the center of everything we do. As a startup, we disrupted the credit card industry by individually personalizing every credit card offer using statistical modeling and the relational database, cutting edge technology in 1988! Fast-forward a few years, and this little innovation and our passion for data has skyrocketed us to a Fortune 200 company and a leader in the world of data-driven decision-making.

As a Data Scientist at Capital One, you'll be part of a team that's leading the next wave of disruption at a whole new scale, using the latest in computing and machine learning technologies and operating across billions of customer records to unlock the big opportunities that help everyday people save money, time and agony in their financial lives.

As a Data Scientist at Capital One's Auto Finance business, you'll be part of a high performing modeling and analytics team that's leading the next wave of disruption at a whole new scale. Our team has a relentless focus on the craft of modeling and innovation, using the latest in computing and machine learning technologies and operating across billions of customer records to unlock the big opportunities that help everyday people save money, time and agony in their financial lives. You'll drive the heart of business by working on an array of impactful and exciting applications like customer lifetime valuation, product recommendation, fraud detection, and productivity improvement via Generative AI.

In this role, you will:

• Partner with a cross-functional team of data scientists, software engineers, machine learning engineers and product managers to deliver AI powered products that change how customers interact with their money.
• Leverage a broad stack of open source and cloud technologies to reveal the insights hidden within huge volumes of numeric and textual data.
• Drive the development of customer-facing Generative AI applications, including novel agentic AI solutions, by expertly finetuning Large Language Models and applying reinforcement learning.
• Build AI/ML solutions through all phases of development, from design through training, evaluation, and validation; partnering with engineering teams to operationalize them in scalable and resilient production systems that serve 80+ million customers.
• Flex your interpersonal skills to translate the complexity of your work into tangible business goals.

The Ideal Candidate is:

• Customer first. You love the process of analyzing and creating, but also share our passion to do the right thing. You know at the end of the day it's about making the right decision for our customers.
• Innovative. You continually research and evaluate emerging technologies. You stay current on published state-of-the-art methods, technologies, and applications and seek out opportunities to apply them.
• Creative. You thrive on bringing definition to big, undefined problems. You love asking questions and pushing hard to find answers. You're not afraid to share a new idea.
• Technical. You're comfortable with advanced ML and DL technologies including language models and are passionate about developing further. You have hands-on experience working with LLMs and solutions using open-source tools and cloud computing platforms.
• Influential. You are passionate about AI/ML and can bring along a cross functional team in breakthrough innovations. You communicate clearly and effectively to share your findings with non-technical audiences.
• You are experienced in training and fine tuning large language models or large multimodal models as well as have expertise in one or more key subdomains such as: Reinforcement Learning, Responsible AI, Computer Vision, RLHF.
• You have an engineering mindset as shown by a track record of delivering models at scale both in training data and inference volumes. You have experience in delivering libraries, platforms, or solution level code to existing products.

Basic Qualifications:

• Currently has, or is in the process of obtaining one of the following with an expectation that the required degree will be obtained on or before the scheduled start date:
  
  • A Bachelor's Degree in a quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Operations Research, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related quantitative field) plus 5 years of experience performing data analytics
  • A Master's Degree in a quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Operations Research, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related quantitative field) or an MBA with a quantitative concentration plus 3 years of experience performing data analytics
  • A PhD in a quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Operations Research, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related quantitative field)

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master's Degree in "STEM" field (Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics) plus 3 years of experience in data analytics, or PhD in "STEM" field (Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics)
• At least 1 year of experience working with AWS
• At least 1 years of specialized experience in building GenAI applications with open source tools, beyond ChatGPT.
• At least 2 years of experience in NLP or Reinforcement Learning
• At least 3 years' experience in Python, Scala, or R
• At least 3 years' experience with machine learning
• At least 3 years' experience with SQL

Capital One will consider sponsoring a new qualified applicant for employment authorization for this position.

This role is Hybrid , with associates expected to consistently spend three days per week in the office.

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.

Plano, TX: $144,200 - $164,600 for Princ Associate, Data Science

McLean, VA: $158,600 - $181,000 for Princ Associate, Data Science

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.

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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).