Staff Software Engineer - Machine Learning

We’re on a mission to transform the way we use data and AI to service our customers and drive efficiency across the business. As a Staff Software Engineer – Machine Learning you will shape the technical landscape and drive innovation across the organisation at Capital One.

What you’ll do:

• Own and drive the ML/AI technical strategy for UK use cases, spanning multiple teams and influencing the overall technical direction for AI adoption.
• Lead and coordinate ML engineering efforts across multiple teams, ensuring alignment with broader business objectives, enterprise platform capabilities and technology strategy.
• Provide technical consultancy to teams delivering AI use cases, guiding architectural decisions, solution design and effective use of enterprise ML/AI platforms and capabilities.
• Proactively identify emerging ML/AI patterns, define and evangelise best practices and establish reusable approaches that enhance delivery of AI use cases across the business.
• Drive MLOps standards and practices across teams, including CI/CD for models, automated testing, monitoring and deployment pipelines.
• Collaborate with enterprise platform and data science teams, contributing to platform capabilities where appropriate and partnering on use‑case delivery.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with key stakeholders, including senior leadership, product owners, data science teams and enterprise platform partners.
• Represent Capital One in external ML/AI technical forums and contribute to industry discussions.
• Develop and advocate for strategies to proactively manage technical debt across ML/AI systems.
• Actively mentor and develop engineers, fostering a culture of continuous learning.

What we’re looking for:

• Deep expertise in Python and ML engineering.
• Deep expertise in ML/AI systems design, MLOps and cloud‑native architectures.
• Track record of leading ML/AI technical initiatives across multiple teams.
• Strong experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Experience with ML frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, scikit‑learn) and Gen AI/Agentic frameworks (LangGraph, LangChain, VectorDBs, RAG).
• Understanding of responsible AI practices, including guardrails, hallucination mitigation and output quality management.
• Experience designing and scaling low‑latency, customer‑facing ML/AI architectures.
• Proven experience setting a multi‑team ML/AI technical vision and strategy.
• Strong track record of technical leadership and influence without authority.
• Experience driving ML engineering standards and best practices across organisations.
• Deep understanding of the full ML/AI development lifecycle, including model serving, data pipelines and Gen AI systems.
• Experience leveraging enterprise platforms to deliver business use cases at scale.
• Experience steering Communities of Practice or technical forums.
• Strong business acumen and ability to translate ML/AI concepts for various audiences.

Where and how you’ll work:

This is a permanent position based in our London office. We have a hybrid working model that allows you to work from the office and from home, with a base of three days a week in London (Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays).

What’s in it for you:

• High‑level career progression with investment in training through Capital One University and external providers.
• Immediate access to core benefits including pension scheme, bonus, generous holiday entitlement and private medical insurance, with flexible benefits such as season‑ticket loans, cycle‑to‑work scheme and enhanced parental leave.
• Open‑plan workspaces and accessible facilities designed to inspire and support you.
• Fully‑serviced gym, subsidised restaurant and mindfulness and music rooms at our Nottingham head‑office.

CapitalOne is committed to diversity in the workplace. If you require a reasonable adjustment, please contact ukrecruitment@capitalone.com.