Lead Software Engineer - MLOps

About the role

At Capital One, you’ll join a large community of makers, breakers, doers, and disruptors who solve real problems and meet real customer needs. The Bank Tech Data, Decisioning, & Market Services Domain serves as the analytical engine of the bank, building the infrastructure that turns data into smart, fast decisions. As a Lead Software Engineer specializing in full‑stack architecture and MLOps, you will lead engineering teams in building scalable ML infrastructure, productionizing data pipelines, and driving a major technology transformation.

Responsibilities

• Lead a portfolio of software and MLOps projects, mentor developers, and drive Agile practices.
• Own the end‑to‑end MLOps lifecycle: take research models from data scientists, build scalable infrastructure, and deploy them as production microservices.
• Design, build, and optimize automated data pipelines, model‑serving platforms, and continuous monitoring systems for high‑stakes applications such as real‑time account takeover fraud detection and AI‑driven vulnerability management.
• Write performant, maintainable code using Python (with Java/Scala as secondary stack components) following strong software‑engineering practices, vulnerability remediation, and system resiliency.
• Balance hands‑on development with technical delivery leadership, guiding engineers, partnering with product management, and coordinating cross‑functional rollouts.
• Leverage cloud infrastructure (AWS), container orchestration (Docker/Kubernetes), ML tooling (PyTorch, TensorFlow, Spark), and interactive AI tools to automate model deployment and manage enterprise‑grade ML platforms.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree.
• At least 4 years of experience programming with Python, Scala, or Java (internship experience does not apply).
• At least 1 year of experience with cloud computing (AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud).
• At least 2 years of experience building, scaling, and optimizing ML systems.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s degree.
• 4+ years of experience building production‑ready data pipelines that feed ML models.
• 3+ years of experience developing performant, resilient, and maintainable code.
• 7+ years of experience in at least one of the following: Java, SQL, Python, or Go.
• 2+ years of on‑the‑job experience with an industry‑recognized ML framework such as scikit‑learn, PyTorch, Dask, Spark, or TensorFlow.
• 3+ years of experience with data gathering and preparation for ML models.
• 4+ years of experience in open‑source frameworks.
• 1+ years of people‑management experience.
• 2+ years of experience in Agile practices.
• Experience collaborating with data‑science teams and technical stakeholders.
• Experience leveraging interactive AI tooling to accelerate productivity, utilizing capabilities beyond basic code completion.

Pay

McLean, VA: $197,300 – $225,100 annual base salary for Lead Software Engineer. Candidates hired in other locations will receive the pay range associated with that location. This role is also eligible for performance‑based incentive compensation, which may include cash bonuses and/or long‑term incentives.

Benefits

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