Senior Director, Data Engineer

Senior Director, Data Engineer

As a Senior Director, Data Engineer at Capital One, you will lead high-performing engineering teams working to define the future of data platforms and banking in the cloud. You will partner closely with product managers, data scientists, architects and executive leaders to deliver scalable, data-driven solutions. Our Senior Directors are technical people leaders who drive data engineering strategy, guide complex architectural decisions and translate business goals into impactful data platforms.

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 foster a culture of engineering excellence and inclusivity, balancing technical depth with empowered team leadership. You will lead the way in building next-generation talent for Capital One Tech—mentoring managers and engineers, driving workforce strategy and actively recruiting top-tier talent.

Senior Directors are expected to lead through technical vision, operational rigor and strategic alignment. You will serve as a key owner for your domain's technical health, delivery velocity and system resilience. While shaping long-term data strategy and platform roadmaps, you will inspire a culture of continuous learning, innovation and high-impact delivery across your organization. 

What You’ll Do:

• Lead, manage, and grow multiple teams of product-focused software and data engineers
• Embrace and incubate emerging technology and open-source products across all platforms
• Work to modernize our existing tech stacks and data platforms
• Collaborate with internal teams to find areas of opportunities for automation and machine learning
• Partner with architects, product owners, data professionals, and software and data engineers to drive the implementation of new applications
• Work within and across Agile teams to design, develop, test, implement and support technical solutions across full-stack development tools and technologies
• Lead efforts to deploy new and existing applications into AWS environments and provide operational support for the applications
• Conduct design and code reviews to ensure compliance with standards
• Serve as an ambassador for the data engineering team, communicating technical concepts and data outcomes clearly to both internal and external stakeholders to drive alignment and shared understanding
• Oversee the design and health of data platforms and pipelines, establishing standards for scalability, resilience, and operational efficiency, ensuring robust performance under increasing data volume and business demands
• Serve as a force-multiplier for the team, balancing deep, hands-on technical contribution and innovation with mentoring and elevating the skills of peers and junior engineers
• Lead and execute large-scale, transformative data initiatives from end to end, independently driving critical architectural decisions and evaluating platform choices, such as Snowflake versus Databricks, based on technical and business requirements

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or a related quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Operations Research, Analytics, Mathematics, Engineering)
• At least 9 years of experience in data engineering
• At least 7 years of people management experience
• At least 7 years of experience programming with at least one of the following languages: Python, Java, or Scala
• At least 5 years of experience driving technical delivery of roadmap features
• At least 6 years of experience designing and developing data pipelines
• At least 4 years of experience in data modeling and designing end-to-end data solutions using both relational and non-relational database systems

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master’s Degree in Computer Science or a related field
• 12+ years of experience in application development with demonstrated proficiency in Python, SQL, Scala, or Java
• 8+ years of hands-on experience designing, deploying and operating data workloads in at least one public cloud environment (AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud)
• 8+ years of experience building or supporting distributed data or compute workloads using tools such as EMR, Spark, Glue, or Databricks
• 8+ years of experience designing, implementing, and operating real-time or streaming data pipelines
• 6+ years of experience working on data observability (e.g., Monte Carlo, Splunk) or data orchestration tools (e.g., Airflow, Dagster)
• 8+ years of experience working with unstructured or semistructured data using NoSQL databases (e.g., MongoDB, Cassandra, DynamoDB)
• 8+ years of experience designing and supporting data warehousing solutions (e.g., Snowflake, Redshift)
• 6+ years of experience working in an Agile development environment
• 6+ years of experience developing user-centric reusable data products
• 5+ years of experience in Data Governance, Data Governance Platforms, Data Standardization, and Data Modeling

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.

McLean, VA: $314,800 - $359,300 for Sr. Director, Data Engineer

 

New York, NY: $343,400 - $392,000 for Sr. Director, Data Engineer

 

Plano, TX: $286,200 - $326,700 for Sr. Director, Data Engineer

 

Richmond, VA: $286,200 - $326,700 for Sr. Director, Data 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 the Capital 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).