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. We build and operate a high-volume, low-latency, and highly resilient distributed ecosystem that is simultaneously secure, performant, accurate, and nimble. This team operates with a startup mindset backed by enterprise scale, is 100% cloud-native, and is deeply committed to engineering excellence and aggressive adoption of 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. You will collaborate with developers, machine learning experts, product managers, and people leaders. Staff Engineers are leading experts in their domains, devising practical and reusable solutions to complex problems, driving innovation at multiple levels, and optimizing business outcomes while advancing strong technology solutions.

At Capital One, we believe diversity of thought strengthens our ability to influence, collaborate, and provide innovative solutions across organizational boundaries. You will promote a culture of engineering excellence, balance lending expertise with an inclusive environment where others’ ideas are heard and championed, and lead the way in creating next-generation talent by mentoring internal talent and actively recruiting to grow our community.

Staff Engineers are expected to lead through technical contribution, operating as trusted advisors for key technologies, platforms, and capability domains. You will create clear and concise communications, code samples, blog posts, and other materials to share knowledge inside and outside the organization. While you will specialize in a particular subject area, 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 our community
• Handle several projects simultaneously, balancing time to maximize impact
• Act as a role model and mentor within the tech community, coaching and strengthening the technical expertise of our 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

Annual full-time salary ranges by location (Capital One is willing to pay within these ranges at the time of posting):

• Houston, TX: $244,700 – $279,200
• McLean, VA: $269,100 – $307,200
• Plano, TX: $244,700 – $279,200
• Riverwoods, IL: $244,700 – $279,200

Candidates hired for other locations will be subject to the pay range associated with that location. Salaries for part-time roles will be prorated. This role is also eligible for performance-based incentive compensation, which may include cash bonuses and/or long-term incentives; incentives could be discretionary or non-discretionary depending on the plan.