Distinguished Engineer

Distinguished Engineer

As a Distinguished Engineer at Capital One, you will be a part of a community of technical experts working to define the future of banking in the cloud.

You will work alongside our talented team of developers, machine learning experts, product managers and people leaders. Our Distinguished Engineers are leading experts in their domains, helping devise practical and reusable solutions to complex problems. You will drive innovation at multiple levels, helping optimize business outcomes while driving towards strong technology solutions.

In a world where digital identity is constantly under attack, traditional authentication methods like SMS OTP and GovID are failing. They are high-friction for customers and increasingly vulnerable to sophisticated fraud and social engineering.

The AirKey ) team is a startup-like organization within Capital One built to solve this problem. We have developed and proven a breakthrough "tap-to-authenticate" technology that turns the bank-issued credit and debit cards already in a customer's wallet into a highly secure hardware token. After successfully scaling this technology to over 85 million cards , our mission is to commercialize it and build a global, distributed identity network.

As a Distinguished Engineer on this team, you will serve as the chief architect for this new, industry-wide platform. You will provide the technical vision and architectural leadership to build a world-class, scalable, and resilient network capable of connecting numerous banks, partners, and merchants. This is a rare opportunity to define the foundational technology for a new global identity ecosystem.

If you are ready to provide thought leadership and build engineering excellence across Capital One's engineering teams, come join us in our mission to change banking for good.

You will:

• Design, build and deliver meaningful commercializable products powered by the latest technology with a focus bringing cohesiveness and development to features for for web and mobile
• Need to wear the 'Product hat' with deep empathy for the customer while helping to inform and develop the technology strategy, roadmap and vision for the platforms you own while delivering application capabilities
• Partner with a cross-functional team of engineers, technical program managers, and product managers to evolve how our customers interact with Capital One and AirKey
• Work within and across teams to design, develop, test, implement, and support technical solutions across a full-stack of development tools and technologies
• Develop and leverage trusted relationships across Architecture, Design, and other Technology leaders to ensure strategic alignment across key AirKey and broader Organizational initiatives
• Lead the craftsmanship, availability, resilience, and scalability of our solutions

Key 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 your time to maximize impact
• Act as a role model and mentor within the tech community, helping to coach and strengthen the technical expertise and know-how of our engineering and product community

• Bachelor's Degree
• At least 7 years of experience in General software Software engineering and solution architecture
• At least 7 years of experience with cloud native technologies (Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud)
• At least 7 years of experience with building solutions on Distributed Networks

• Bachelor's or Masters' Degree in Computer Science or related field
• 10+ years of experience in software engineering or software development
• 7+ years of experience with public cloud providers (Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure)
• 7+ years of experience in modernizing technology stacks
• 5+ years of experience in Agile practices
• 2+ years of experience in Fintech or a startup

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

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.

Chicago, IL: $239,900 - $273,800 for Distinguished Engineer

San Francisco, CA: $287,800 - $328,500 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 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 ; 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.

If you have visited our website in search of information on employment opportunities or to apply for a position, and you require an accommodation, please contact Capital One Recruiting at or via email at All information you provide will be kept confidential and will be used only to the extent required to provide needed reasonable accommodations.

For technical support or questions about Capital One's recruiting process, please send an email to

Capital One does not provide, endorse nor guarantee and is not liable for third-party products, services, educational tools or other information available through this site.

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).