Senior Distinguished Engineer – Automated Governance

Overview

Senior Distinguished Engineer – Automated Governance

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.

At Capital One, we believe diversity of thought strengthens our ability to influence, collaborate and provide the most innovative solutions across organizational boundaries. You will promote a culture of engineering excellence, and strike the right balance between lending expertise and providing an inclusive environment where the ideas of others can be heard and championed. You will lead the way in creating next-generation talent for Capital One Tech, mentoring internal talent and actively recruiting to keep building our community.

Team Description: 

In the "One Pipeline" group, we are transforming compliance from a gate into a guarantee. We are seeking a Senior Distinguished Engineer to lead the technical vision for automated governance and software supply chain integrity.

This is a role for a systems thinker who sees security and speed as symbiotic. As an individual contributor with enterprise-wide influence, you will engineer the systems that make compliance seamless for developers while maintaining complete auditability for regulators. In a highly regulated environment with multiple federal oversight bodies, the complexity isn't optional—but the friction can be eliminated.

Furthermore, you will help shape the governance strategy for emerging frontiers, including agentic systems. As Capital One adopts AI-driven development, you will partner with our Agentic Platform, Risk Management, SDLC Policy, and Cyber teams to ensure we can systematically verify that agentically-produced code meets our quality and compliance standards.

You Will: 

Engineer Automated Governance: Lead the strategy for systems that treat compliance as a data problem. You will design frameworks that integrate directly into the developer workflow, ensuring code meets compliance requirements from the moment it's written—without manual intervention.

Define Agentic Safety: Partner with Agentic Platform and Risk teams to build the verification systems that ensure agentically-produced code meets our quality and compliance bar. You will design the frameworks that maintain perfect traceability of requirements and outcomes, regardless of whether the contributor is human or AI.

Simplify Regulatory Complexity: Translate complex regulatory requirements into elegant, automated technical solutions. You will build structure in ambiguity, creating systems that satisfy auditors while empowering engineers to move fast.

Drive Technical Impact: Operate as a hands-on leader, driving the implementation of critical solutions. You will review architectures, design control frameworks, and ensure our tooling meets the highest standards of reliability and performance.

Bridge Engineering and Risk: Partner with Risk Management, SDLC Policy, Cyber, and Audit teams to align technical strategies with business outcomes. You will ensure our engineering practices remain ahead of the regulatory curve, translating policy requirements into platform capabilities.

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree

• At least 9 years of experience in software engineering, including experience in designing and scaling backend systems, security protocols, or data platform

• At least 7 years of experience building and optimizing resilient, production-critical infrastructure

Preferred Qualifications:  

• Master's Degree in Computer Science or a related field

• 3 + Years of experience in complex regulated environments.

• 2 + year experience designing compliance-as-code or automated governance frameworks that process high volumes (millions of daily validations) at enterprise scale.

• Proven ability to identify systemic risks and drive solutions across organizational boundaries, translating between technical and policy stakeholders 

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: $286,200 - $326,700 for Sr Distinguished Engineer

McLean, VA: $314,800 - $359,300 for Sr Distinguished Engineer

New York, NY: $343,400 - $392,000 for Sr Distinguished Engineer

Richmond, VA: $286,200 - $326,700 for Sr 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 theCapital 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 4901-4920; 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 1-800-304-9102 or via email at RecruitingAccommodation@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).