Distinguished Engineer -Developer Insights & AI Telemetry

About the role

As a Distinguished 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 operate as a hands-on technical visionary, leading the strategy, implementation, and long-term vision for our enterprise Developer Insights domain, with a dedicated focus on Data Engineering strategies, ML/AI engineering, distributed AI telemetry, and AI Insights.

In this role, you will work alongside our talented team of developers, data engineers, machine learning experts, product managers, and people leaders. Our domain-driven organizational structure drives higher accountability and ownership, empowering you to bridge the gap between deep technical implementation and executive-level business value. You will champion Capital One’s native, vendor-agnostic AI impact telemetry platform, scaling it into an enterprise-grade "Mission Control" layer that captures, analyzes, and optimizes human-AI collaboration for multi-disciplinary users.

Responsibilities

• Vision & Strategy: Architect the long-term enterprise roadmap for distributed AI telemetry, streaming data engineering, and automated developer insight frameworks.
• Enterprise Scaling & Telemetry: Lead the technical evolution of our internal developer telemetry platform from a high-performance Agent Hook Architecture into a stateless, low-latency utility capable of handling billions of annual high-fidelity events across global regions.
• ML/AI & Intelligence Layer: Spearhead the deployment of advanced inference capabilities, including LLM-as-a-Judge models, to autonomously score code complexity, categorize AI use cases (e.g., Core Logic vs. Testing), and calculate the TrueThroughput and return on investment (ROI) of generative AI tools.
• Data Engineering & Architecture: Own the end-to-end data strategy, shifting from traditional batch reporting to real-time event-driven architectures utilizing a scalable Medallion (Bronze/Silver/Gold) data structure feeding directly into our enterprise data lake.
• Business Metric Correlation: Partner with Bank Tech Analytics to link AI code density data and telemetry directly with core business outcomes—such as lowering Feature Lead Time (FLT) and PR cycle time—without compromising quality and risk bars.
• Risk & Privacy Governance: Design and enforce rigorous privacy-by-design principles, implementing automated PII masking, token management, and secret filtering to guarantee a completely safe space for engineering innovation.
• Culture & Technical Contribution: Lead through direct technical contribution—prototyping systems, evaluating build vs. buy paths, authoring code patterns, and deeply mentoring principal and senior engineers across the Developer Enablement tower.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree.
• At least 7 years of experience in software engineering, solution architecture, or enterprise architecture.
• At least 5 years of experience with big data engineering, distributed computing, or data architecture (e.g., Spark, Kafka, Kinesis, ClickHouse, Snowflake, or cloud data warehouses).
• At least 3 years of experience with Big Data and data streaming.
• At least 4 years of experience building and optimizing production-grade ML/AI lifecycles, pipelines, or frameworks.
• At least 2 years of cloud computing experience (AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud).

Qualifications

• Master’s Degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Engineering, or a related engineering discipline.
• 10+ years of professional experience coding in commonly used languages like Python, Go, Java, or TypeScript.
• 6+ years of experience designing and managing high-throughput distributed streaming architectures or edge collection telemetry platforms (e.g., OpenTelemetry, Protobuf interception hooks).
• 3+ years of experience in a technical leadership role directly influencing VP/SVP/Executive stakeholders on multi-million dollar technology or AI strategy initiatives.
• Deep understanding of compliance, data privacy, and cybersecurity constraints within a highly regulated environment (BankTech), including experience co-authoring risk assessments alongside Cyber and Risk teams.
• Proven track record of operating within a product-centric organization (Domain Category Owner/Technical Product Owner model), delivering tactical values in continuous validation cycles.
• Experience utilizing advanced engineering metrics (DORA, SPACE, AI Telemetry, Feature Lead Time) to demonstrate how developer tool investments translate into measurable corporate velocity and efficiency gains.

Pay

The minimum and maximum full-time annual salaries for this role are listed below, by location. Salaries for part-time roles will be prorated based on the agreed-upon number of hours to be regularly worked.

• McLean, VA: $269,100 - $307,200
• New York, NY: $293,600 - $335,100
• Richmond, VA: $244,700 - $279,200
• Wilmington, DE: $244,700 - $279,200

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 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.

Benefits

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