Staff Cloud Engineer

Staff Cloud Engineer

Do you love building and pioneering in the technology space? Do you enjoy solving complex business problems in a fast-paced, collaborative, inclusive, and iterative delivery environment? At Capital One, you'll be part of a big group of makers, breakers, doers and disruptors, who love to solve real problems and meet real customer needs. We are seeking Cloud Engineers who are passionate about marrying data with emerging technologies to join our team. As a Cloud Engineer, you’ll have the opportunity to be on the forefront of driving a major cloud infrastructure transformation within Capital One. Help us define and build the future of infrastructure at enterprise scale!

What You’ll Do:

• Articulate and evangelize a bold technical vision for your domain
• Decompose complex problems into practical and operational solutions
• Ensure the quality of technical design and implementation
• Serve as an authoritative expert on non-functional system characteristics, such as performance, scalability and operability
• Continue learning and injecting advanced technical knowledge into our community
• Handle several projects simultaneously, balancing your time to maximize impact
• Act as a role model and mentor within the tech community, helping to coach and strengthen the technical expertise and know-how of our engineering and product community
• Drive modernization of monolithic systems into microservice architectures and event-driven platforms
• Collaborate with senior engineering and architecture leaders to define long-term platform strategy and API standards
• 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 cross-divisional projects and impacts that promote technological best practices and enhancements
• Lead the adoption and responsible use of emerging AI and automation capabilities to improve the scalability, reliability, and efficiency of cloud platforms and engineering workflows

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree or higher in Computer Science or a related quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Operations Research, Analytics, Mathematics, Engineering)
• At least 8 years of experience in software engineering 
• At least 4 years of experience in cloud engineering

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master’s Degree in Computer Science or a Master’s Degree in Software Engineering
• 10+ years of experience in coding with at least one of the following: Java, Scala, Python, Go, or Node.js
• 6+ years of experience with public cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure, OCI)
• 6+ years of experience in CI/CD orchestration, Infrastructure-as-Code frameworks (e.g., Terraform, CloudFormation, Pulumi, Crossplane), and Automated Governance using Policy-as-Code DSLs (e.g. OPA)
• One or more active certifications related to cloud infrastructure management or security
• Experience in optimizing complex, high-scale distributed systems and cloud-native architectures (Kubernetes, Serverless)
• Experience designing and supporting cloud networking, security and identity integrations
• Experience troubleshooting and supporting production cloud environments
• Experience leading cross-functional engineering efforts or large-scale technical initiatives
• Experience influencing technology strategy at the portfolio or business unit level
• Experience managing multi-team engineering organizations or leading strategic technical programs spanning multiple domains
• Experience defining and tracking engineering OKRs that align to business outcomes
• Experience shaping organization design and talent strategy for scaling engineering capabilities
• Experience with strategic and executive-level communication to influence technology decisions within the organization
• Experience leading architectural design reviews and influencing enterprise-wide technical standards and methodologies
• Experience in the full lifecycle of system development, from conception through architecture, implementation, testing, deployment and production support
• Experience mentoring senior engineers and driving professional development within technical teams
• Expertise in the strategic application of agentic AI coding tools to solve systemic development challenges

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: $269,100 - $307,200 for Staff Cloud Engineer New York, NY: $293,600 - $335,100 for Staff Cloud Engineer Plano, TX: $244,700 - $279,200 for Staff Cloud Engineer Richmond, VA: $244,700 - $279,200 for Staff Cloud 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.

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).