Senior Director, Applied Researcher

Capital One

. Lead teams and drive strategic direction in collaboration with Applied Science, Engineering, and Product leaders across Capital One .

Posted 10/14/2026full-timeUnited StatesSenior💰 $350,000 - $435,700 per yearWebsite

Core Competencies

Role fit

Core Competencies

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Demonstrates expertise in AI methodologies, applied research, and leadership in building AI-powered banking products. Proven ability to translate complex technical concepts into strategic business goals while mentoring teams and driving innovation.

Highest-signal resume keywords

PhD In Relevant FieldPeople Leadership ExperienceDeep Learning Model DevelopmentAI Foundation Model DevelopmentExperience With PyTorch

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills

Applied ResearchAI MethodologiesDeep LearningTraining OptimizationSelf-Supervised LearningRobustnessExplainabilityReinforcement LearningProduction-Grade SystemsModel Delivery At Scale

Soft Skills

MentoringCollaborationStrategic DirectionCommunication

Tools & Technologies

PyTorchAWS UltraclustersHugging FaceLightningOpen-Source ToolsCloud Computing Platforms

Industry Keywords

AI ResearchMachine LearningLarge Language Model TrainingPublications At Major AI/ML ConferencesGPU Cluster Experience

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

AWSCloudPyTorch

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Lead teams and drive strategic direction in collaboration with Applied Science, Engineering, and Product leaders across Capital One
Guide and mentor a team of applied scientists
Represent Capital One externally in the research community and collaborate with prominent AI research faculty
Partner with applied researchers, data scientists, AI engineers, machine learning engineers, and product managers to deliver AI-powered banking products
Use PyTorch, AWS Ultraclusters, Hugging Face, Lightning, and related technologies to analyze large volumes of numeric and textual data
Build and apply AI foundation models through design, training, evaluation, validation, and implementation
Conduct high-impact applied research and translate emerging AI developments into customer experiences
Translate technical complexity into tangible business goals
Set the organization’s strategic research vision and roadmap, aligning scientific discovery with business transformation priorities

Requirements

What you’ll need

PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, AI, Mathematics, or related fields plus 6 years of experience in Applied Research, OR M.S. in those fields plus 8 years of experience in Applied Research
At least 5 years of people leadership experience
Deep, first-principles understanding of AI methodologies
Experience building large deep learning models and expertise in areas such as training optimization, self-supervised learning, robustness, explainability, or reinforcement learning
Experience building production-grade systems with large-scale business impact
Track record delivering models at scale in training data and inference volumes
Experience delivering libraries, platform-level code, or solution-level code to existing products
Track record of high-quality machine learning ideas, such as first-author publications or projects
Ability to own and pursue a research agenda and autonomously carry out long-running projects
Hands-on experience developing AI foundation models and solutions using open-source tools and cloud computing platforms
Preferred: PhD in relevant field; LLM/NLP research experience; large language model training and deployment; publications at major AI/ML conferences; GPU cluster experience; training optimization frameworks; graph and sequential models; recommender systems; streaming environments; data preparation and open-source corpus/library contributions; scaling research organizations and cross-disciplinary programs
Capital One will consider sponsoring a new qualified applicant for employment authorization

Benefits

Comp & perks

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 supporting total well-being
Employment authorization sponsorship consideration for a new qualified applicant
Reasonable accommodations for applicants who require them