Staff Engineer (Global Payment Network)
About the role
As a Staff Engineer at Capital One, you will be part of a community of technical experts working to define the future of banking in the cloud. The Global Payment Network (GPN) Technology organization designs, builds, and operates mission-critical systems and infrastructure that power complex money movement across domestic and international rails. You will join a high-volume, low-latency, and highly resilient distributed ecosystem that is secure, performant, accurate, and nimble, operating with a startup mindset backed by enterprise scale. The team is 100% cloud-native, committed to engineering excellence, and aggressively adopts cutting-edge AI tooling—including Claude Code, Windsurf, and custom AI agents—to accelerate the development lifecycle. You’ll work hands-on with Senior Lead Engineers building the resilient, ultra-low-latency backbone of future global commerce alongside developers, machine learning experts, product managers, and people leaders.
Staff Engineers at Capital One are leading experts in their domains, driving innovation at multiple levels to optimize business outcomes and deliver strong technology solutions. You will promote a culture of engineering excellence, balance technical leadership with inclusivity, and champion diverse ideas across organizational boundaries. You will lead the way in creating next-generation talent through mentorship and active recruiting, while operating as a trusted advisor for key technologies, platforms, and capability domains. Your contributions will include clear communications, code samples, blog posts, and knowledge-sharing both inside and outside the organization. You will specialize in a subject area, yet your input and impact will be sought and expected throughout the organization.
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 the community
- Handle several projects simultaneously, balancing time to maximize impact
- Act as a role model and mentor within the tech community, coaching and strengthening technical expertise across engineering and product teams
Basic Qualifications
- Bachelor’s Degree
- At least 7 years of experience in general software
- At least 7 years of experience in software engineering and solution 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.
- 8+ years of professional experience in the full lifecycle of system development, from conception through architecture, implementation, testing, deployment, and production support
- 3+ years of experience with public or private cloud technologies
- 8+ years of experience with Networking (BGP, Wi-Fi, SD-WAN, Cloud Networking, and Data Center Networking)
- Experience leveraging interactive AI tooling to accelerate productivity, utilizing capabilities beyond basic code completion
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.
- Houston, TX: $244,700 – $279,200 for Distinguished Engineer
- McLean, VA: $269,100 – $307,200 for Distinguished Engineer
- Plano, TX: $244,700 – $279,200 for Distinguished Engineer
- Riverwoods, IL: $244,700 – $279,200 for 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 will be reflected in the candidate’s offer letter. This role is also eligible to earn performance-based incentive compensation, which may include cash bonuses and/or long-term incentives (LTI). Incentives could be discretionary or non-discretionary depending on the plan.