Lead AI Engineer (Vision model customization, VLM)

Build and scale vision-focused foundation AI for real-world use at Capital One. As part of the Intelligent Foundations and Experiences (IFX) team, you will help bring the company’s vision for AI to life by leading the design and delivery of AI software components across training, inference, evaluation, and responsible deployment. The role is based in New York, NY (onsite) and includes an eligible performance-based incentive plan alongside comprehensive benefits.

What you’ll do

• Collaborate with a cross-functional group of engineers, research scientists, technical program managers, and product managers to deliver AI-powered products that improve how associates work and how customers engage with Capital One.
• Design, develop, test, deploy, and support AI software components across foundation model training, large language model inference, similarity search, guardrails, model evaluation, experimentation, governance, and observability.
• Use an ecosystem of Open Source and SaaS AI tooling such as AWS Ultraclusters, Huggingface, VectorDBs, Nemo Guardrails, and PyTorch, plus additional cloud and ML infrastructure.
• Introduce state-of-the-art LLM optimization methods to improve scalability, cost, latency, and throughput for large-scale production AI systems.
• Help shape the technical direction and long-term roadmap for foundational AI systems.

Requirements

• A Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, AI, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field plus at least 4 years of experience developing AI and ML algorithms or technologies, or a Master’s degree plus at least 2 years of experience developing AI and ML algorithms or technologies.
• At least 4 years of programming experience with Python, Go, Scala, or Java.

Preferred qualifications

• 6 years of experience deploying scalable and responsible AI solutions on cloud platforms such as AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, or an equivalent private cloud.
• Experience designing, developing, delivering, and supporting AI services.
• Experience developing AI and ML algorithms or technologies (for example: 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.
• Passion for staying current with AI research and using novel techniques appropriately in production.

Technologies you may work with

AWS Ultraclusters, Huggingface, VectorDBs, Nemo Guardrails, PyTorch, AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Python, Go, Scala, Java, C++, C#, Golang.

Compensation and benefits

Salary: USD 215,200 - 245,600 per year for New York, NY.

• Eligible to earn performance-based incentive compensation, which may include cash bonus(es) and/or long-term incentives (LTI).
• Comprehensive, competitive, and inclusive health, financial, and other benefits that support total well-being.