Principal Associate, AI Engineer

About Capital One Canada

For 30 years, we've been on a mission to change banking for good. We challenge the traditional bank stereotype by integrating machine learning, conversational AI and design thinking into our core operations. We're a bank a tech company would build, where your work directly shapes innovative solutions that impact millions of Canadians. 

We're driven by fearless curiosity, bold innovation, and a collective of authentic people working together to redefine what's possible. Technology isn’t just part of our strategy, it is our strategy. Everything we do serves our vision and the creation of what's next.

About the Team

At Capital One, we are creating responsible and reliable AI systems, changing banking for good. For years, Capital One has been an industry leader in using machine learning to create real-time, personalized customer experiences. Our investments in technology infrastructure and world-class talent — along with our deep experience in machine learning — position us to be at the forefront of enterprises leveraging AI. From informing customers about unusual charges to answering their questions in real time, our applications of AI & ML are bringing humanity and simplicity to banking. We are committed to continuing to build world-class applied science and engineering teams to deliver our industry leading capabilities with breakthrough product experiences and scalable, high-performance AI infrastructure. At Capital One, you will help bring the transformative power of emerging AI capabilities to reimagine how we serve our customers and businesses who have come to love the products and services we build.

The Intelligent Foundations and Experiences (IFX) team is at the center of bringing our vision for AI at Capital One to life. We work hand-in-hand with our partners across the company to advance the state of the art in science and AI engineering, and we build and deploy proprietary solutions that are central to our business and deliver value to millions of customers.  Our AI models and platforms empower teams across Capital One to enhance their products with the transformative power of AI, in responsible and scalable ways for the highest leverage impact.

About the Role

In this role, you will:

• Partner with a cross-functional team of engineers, research scientists, technical program managers, and product managers to deliver AI-powered products that change how our associates work and how our customers interact with Capital One.
• Design, develop, test, deploy, and support AI software components including foundation model training, large language model inference, similarity search, guardrails, model evaluation, experimentation, governance, and observability, etc.
• Leverage a broad stack of Open Source and SaaS AI technologies such as AWS Ultraclusters, Huggingface, VectorDBs, Nemo Guardrails, PyTorch, and more.
• Invent and introduce state-of-the-art LLM optimization techniques to improve the performance — scalability, cost, latency, throughput — of large scale production AI systems.
• Contribute to the technical vision and the long term roadmap of foundational AI systems at Capital One. 

The ideal candidate:

• You love to build systems, take pride in the quality of your work, and also share our passion to do the right thing. You want to work on problems that will help change banking for good. 
• You have a passion for staying abreast of the latest research, and an ability to intuitively understand scientific publications and judiciously apply novel techniques in production.
• You adapt quickly and thrive on bringing clarity to big, undefined problems. You love asking questions and digging deep to uncover the root of problems and can articulate your findings concisely with clarity. You have the courage to share new ideas even when they are unproven.
• You are deeply technical. You possess a strong foundation in engineering and mathematics, and your expertise in hardware, software, and AI enable you to see and exploit optimization opportunities that others miss. 
• You are a resilient trail blazer who can forge new paths to achieve business goals when the route is unknown.  

Basic Qualifications:

• Currently has, or is in the process of obtaining one of the following with an expectation that the required degree will be obtained on or before the scheduled start date:
  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, AI, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related fields plus at least 3 years of experience developing AI and ML algorithms or technologies
  • Master's degree in Computer Science, AI, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or related fields plus at least 1 year of experience developing AI and ML algorithms or technologies
• At least 3 years of experience programming with Python, Go, Scala, or Java

Preferred Qualifications:

• 4 years of experience deploying scalable and responsible AI solutions on cloud platforms (e.g. AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, or equivalent private cloud)
• Experience developing, delivering, and supporting AI services
• Experience developing AI and ML algorithms or technologies (e.g. LLM Inference, Similarity Search and VectorDBs, Guardrails, Memory) using Python, C++, C#, Java, or Golang
• Experience developing and applying state-of-the-art techniques for optimizing training and inference software to improve hardware utilization, latency, throughput, and cost

Working at Capital One

You’ll be empowered to take end-to-end ownership of your work and your career, backed by a high-performance, hybrid culture and holistic suite of benefits designed to support your whole self. 

• Take ownership of your own potential: Whether you’re looking to upskill, pivot into new business areas, or master your craft, you’ll have access to tools and mentorship to reach your potential and define your career trajectory.
• Find your rhythm: We believe trust fosters the flexibility and autonomy required to balance personal needs with a focus on high performance. We support a hybrid model – with 3 days in the office per week – that gives room for both collaboration and personal commitments.
• Benefits built for your life: We take a holistic approach to well-being, providing support for you and those who are most important to you. This includes: full coverage for spouses, domestic partners and dependents, a one-time Work From Home allowance to build your comfortable workspace, up to $3,000 in mental health coverage and up to $5,000 in annual tuition subsidies.

You’ll find that Capital One is committed to helping you thrive and evolve every step of the way.

This posting is for an existing vacancy.

The expected annual salary range for this position is $148,200 to $169,100. This role is also eligible to earn performance-based incentive compensation, which may include cash bonus(es). Incentives could be discretionary or non-discretionary depending on the plan.

We embrace the responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the candidate experience and streamline our recruitment processes. However, no hiring decisions are made using AI as every hiring decision is made by our hiring managers, business interviewers, and recruitment professionals. Our teams are equipped with training that empowers them to use AI responsibly.

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 1-800-304-9102 or via email at ARCanada@capitalone.com. 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 Careers@capitalone.com

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).