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Capital One

Principal Data Scientist

On site

Richmond, United states

Senior

Full Time

09-02-2026

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Skills

Python SQL Decision-making Research Training Machine Learning Deep Learning Organization AWS Analytics Snowflake Data Science Natural Language Processing Mathematics

Job Specifications

Principal Data Scientist
Principal Associate, Data Scientist - Bank Operations Data Science - Payments Organization
Data is at the center of everything we do. As a startup, we disrupted the credit card industry by individually personalizing every credit card offer using statistical modeling and the relational database, cutting edge technology in 1988! Fast-forward a few years, and this little innovation and our passion for data has skyrocketed us to a Fortune 200 company and a leader in the world of data-driven decision-making.
As a Data Scientist at Capital One, you'll be part of a team that's leading the next wave of disruption at a whole new scale, using the latest in computing and machine learning technologies and operating across billions of customer records to unlock the big opportunities that help everyday people save money, time and agony in their financial lives.
Team Description
The Bank Operations Data Science team builds the machine learning models that help provide core capabilities internally such as Check/Document Reading, Anomaly Identification, Natural Language Processing of Calls, and operational forecasting. We build ground-breaking industry leading models using emerging technologies like neural networks, LLMs, transformer architectures, and agentic experiences.
Role Description
In this role, you will:
Partner with a cross-functional team of data scientists, software engineers, business analysts, and product managers to deliver a product customers love
Leverage a broad stack of technologies - Python, Snowflake, and more - to reveal the insights hidden within huge volumes of numeric and textual data
Build machine learning models through all phases of development, from design through training, evaluation, validation, and implementation
Flex your interpersonal skills to translate the complexity of your work into tangible business goals
This role works directly with our Enterprise Payments team to streamline all payment/monetary transfer channels. This ranges from ingestion, through anomaly detection, and even operational streamlining with agentic processes.
The Ideal Candidate is:
Innovative. You continually research and evaluate emerging technologies. You stay current on published state-of-the-art methods, technologies, and applications and seek out opportunities to apply them.
Creative. You thrive on bringing definition to big, undefined problems. You love asking questions and pushing hard to find answers. You're not afraid to share a new idea.
Technical. You're comfortable with open-source languages and are passionate about developing further. You have hands-on experience developing data science solutions using open-source tools and cloud computing platforms.
Statistically-minded. You've built models, validated them, and backtested them. You know how to interpret a confusion Matrix or a ROC curve. You have experience with clustering, classification, sentiment analysis, time series, and deep learning.
Basic Qualifications:
Currently has, or is in the process of obtaining one of the following with an expectation that the required degree will be obtained on or before the scheduled start date:
A Bachelor's Degree in a quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Operations Research, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related quantitative field) plus 5 years of experience performing data analytics
A Master's Degree in a quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Operations Research, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related quantitative field) or an MBA with a quantitative concentration plus 3 years of experience performing data analytics
A PhD in a quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Operations Research, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related quantitative field)
Preferred Qualifications:
Master's Degree in "STEM" field (Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics) plus 3 years of experience in data analytics, or PhD in "STEM" field (Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics)
At least 1 year of experience working with AWS
At least 3 years' experience in Python
At least 3 years' experience with machine learning
At least 3 years' experience with SQL
At least one agentic system personally built
At least one machine vision model personally built
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: $158,600 - $181,000 for Princ Associate, Data ScienceRichmond, VA: $144,200 - $164,600 for Princ Associate, Data Science
Candidates hired to work in other locations will be su

About the Company

At Capital One, we're making things better for our customers and associates through innovation and collaboration. We were founded on the belief that everyone deserves financial freedom—and are dedicated to a world where all have equal opportunity to prosper. Banking is in our DNA, but we are so much more than a bank. We always think about what’s next—and how we can bring our customers the tools needed to improve their financial lives. Your ideas, experiences and skills will help make banking better. You’ll be part of a sup... Know more