Full Stack Engineer 4 - MLOps

McLean, VA, US Mid Level MLOps Engineer

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Skills & Technologies

AwsAzureDockerGcpKubernetesPythonPytorchTensorflow

About This Role

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Full Stack Engineer 4 - MLOps 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 solve real problems and meet real customer needs. We are seeking Software Engineers who specialize in full-stack architecture and MLOps to bridge the gap between software engineering, cloud infrastructure, and machine learning. As a Capital One Software Engineer, you’ll aid engineering teams in building scalable ML infrastructure, productionizing data pipelines, and driving a major technology transformation within Capital One.

The Bank Tech Data, Decisioning, & Market Services Domain serves as the analytical engine of the bank, building the infrastructure that turns data into smart, fast decisions. We integrate data and AI capabilities into a single, cohesive platform that supports our business and capital market teams. Our focus is on creating a modern data architecture that allows us to leverage information responsibly, providing the predictive insights needed to deliver better outcomes for our clients. Looking ahead, our imperatives are centered on evolving our predictive insights and scaling our AI-driven decisioning models.

What You’ll Do:

  • Own the end-to-end MLOps lifecycle by taking research models built by data scientists, building scalable infrastructure, and deploying them into production microservices.
  • Design, build, and optimize automated data pipelines, model serving platforms, and continuous monitoring systems for high-stakes applications like real-time account takeover fraud detection and AI-driven vulnerability management.
  • Write performant, maintainable code using Python (with Java/Scala as secondary stack components) anchored in strong software engineering practices, vulnerability remediations, and system resiliency.
  • Balance hands-on software development and MLOps engineering with technical delivery leadership, guiding engineers, partnering with product management, and coordinating cross-functional rollouts.
  • Harness cloud infrastructure (AWS), container orchestration (Docker/Kubernetes), ML tooling (PyTorch, TensorFlow, Spark), and interactive AI tools to automate model deployment and manage enterprise-grade ML platforms.

Basic Qualifications:

  • Bachelor's Degree or higher in Computer Science or a related quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Operations Research, Analytics, Mathematics, Engineering)
  • At least 4 years of experience in software engineering (Internship experience does not apply)
  • At least 2 years of experience with public cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure), cloud-based productivity tools, or virtualization technologies
  • At least 2 years of experience building, scaling, and optimizing ML systems

Preferred Qualifications:

  • Master’s Degree in Computer Science or a related field
  • 4+ years of experience building production-ready data pipelines that feed ML models
  • 3+ years of experience developing performant, resilient, and maintainable code

7+ years of experience in at least one of the following: Java, SQL, Python, or Go

  • 2+ years of on-the-job experience with an industry recognized ML framework such as scikit-learn, PyTorch, Dask, Spark, or TensorFlow
  • 3+ years of experience developing performant, resilient, and maintainable code
  • 3+ years of experience with data gathering and preparation for ML models
  • 4+ years of experience in open source frameworks
  • 1+ years of people management experience
  • 2+ years of experience in Agile practices
  • Experience collaborating with data science teams and technical stakeholder
  • Experience leveraging interactive AI tooling to accelerate productivity, utilizing capabilities beyond basic code completion

At this time, Capital One will not sponsor a new applicant for employment authorization, or offer any immigration related support for this position (e.g. H1B, F-1 OPT, F-1 STEM OPT, F-1 CPT, J-1, TN, E-3, and O-1, or any other forms of work authorization that require immigration support from an employer).

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: $197,300 - $225,100 for Full-stack Engineer 4

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 [email protected]. 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 [email protected]

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).

Role Details

Company Capital One
Title Full Stack Engineer 4 - MLOps
Location McLean, VA, US
Category MLOps Engineer
Experience Mid Level
Salary Not disclosed
Remote No

About This Role

MLOps Engineers build the infrastructure that keeps ML models running in production. They own CI/CD pipelines for model deployment, monitoring for data drift and model degradation, and the tooling that lets data scientists ship faster. If ML Engineers build the models, MLOps Engineers build the roads those models travel on.

The job is fundamentally about reliability and velocity. Data scientists want to iterate fast. Product teams want stable predictions. Your job is to make both happen simultaneously. That means building deployment pipelines that catch regressions before they hit production, monitoring systems that alert on data drift before it degrades model performance, and self-service tooling that lets data scientists deploy without filing a ticket.

Across the 9,653 AI roles we're tracking, MLOps Engineer positions make up 2% of the market. At Capital One, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.

MLOps demand tracks closely with production ML adoption. As more companies move models from notebooks to production, the need for MLOps grows. The role is well-established at large tech companies and growing fast at mid-stage startups that are hitting the 'our models work in notebooks but break in production' phase.

What the Work Looks Like

A typical week involves: debugging a model deployment that's serving stale predictions, building a new monitoring dashboard for a feature team, writing Terraform for GPU-enabled inference clusters, reviewing pull requests for the ML platform's CI/CD pipeline, and meeting with data scientists to understand their pain points. You're the bridge between ML and infrastructure.

MLOps demand tracks closely with production ML adoption. As more companies move models from notebooks to production, the need for MLOps grows. The role is well-established at large tech companies and growing fast at mid-stage startups that are hitting the 'our models work in notebooks but break in production' phase.

Skills Required

Aws (9% of roles) Azure (8% of roles) Docker (3% of roles) Gcp (5% of roles) Kubernetes (4% of roles) Python (17% of roles) Pytorch (5% of roles) Tensorflow (4% of roles)

Kubernetes, Docker, and cloud infrastructure are baseline. Most roles want experience with ML-specific tooling: MLflow, Kubeflow, Weights & Biases, or similar. Strong DevOps fundamentals matter more than ML theory. You need to understand model serving (TorchServe, Triton, vLLM), monitoring (Prometheus, Grafana), and infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Pulumi).

GPU infrastructure knowledge is increasingly valuable as LLM inference becomes a major cost center. Understanding GPU scheduling, multi-node training setups, and inference optimization (quantization, batching, caching) puts you in the top tier. Experience with model registries and feature stores rounds out the profile.

Good MLOps postings specify their ML stack, infrastructure scale, and the problems they're solving (deployment velocity, cost optimization, monitoring gaps). Red flag: companies that want MLOps but don't have any models in production yet. You'll end up doing general DevOps instead.

Compensation Benchmarks

MLOps Engineer roles pay a median of $205,000 based on 151 positions with disclosed compensation. Mid-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $193,200.

Across all AI roles, the market median is $213,400. Top-quartile compensation starts at $264,230. The 90th percentile reaches $319,400. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($253,100) and Research Engineer ($252,000). By seniority level: Entry: $110,408; Mid: $193,200; Senior: $228,700; Director: $272,275; VP: $235,000.

Capital One AI Hiring

Capital One has 125 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer, AI Product Manager, AI Software Engineer, Data Scientist. Positions span McLean, VA, US, New York, NY, US, New York, NY.

Location Context

Across all AI roles, 6% (568 positions) offer remote work, while 9,010 require on-site attendance. Top AI hiring metros: New York (2,878 roles, $221,000 median); San Francisco (2,413 roles, $264,500 median); Los Angeles (1,340 roles, $210,000 median).

Career Path

Common paths into MLOps Engineer roles include DevOps Engineer, Platform Engineer, Data Engineer.

From here, career progression typically leads toward ML Platform Lead, Infrastructure Architect, Engineering Manager.

DevOps engineers with ML curiosity have the shortest path. You already understand deployment, monitoring, and infrastructure. Add ML-specific knowledge (model serving, data pipelines, experiment tracking) and you're competitive. The career ceiling is high: ML Platform Lead roles at top companies pay well because the infrastructure complexity is enormous.

What to Expect in Interviews

Interviews emphasize infrastructure and reliability. Expect questions about CI/CD for ML models, monitoring for data drift, and how you'd design a model serving platform that handles 10K requests per second. Coding rounds focus on Python and infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Helm). Be ready to discuss tradeoffs between different model serving frameworks and how you'd handle rollback when a new model degrades performance.

When evaluating opportunities: Good MLOps postings specify their ML stack, infrastructure scale, and the problems they're solving (deployment velocity, cost optimization, monitoring gaps). Red flag: companies that want MLOps but don't have any models in production yet. You'll end up doing general DevOps instead.

AI Hiring Overview

The AI job market has 9,653 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 193 entry-level, 4,500 mid-level, 3,455 senior, and 1,505 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 6% of the market (568 positions). The remaining 9,010 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.

The market median for AI roles is $213,400. Top-quartile compensation starts at $264,230. The 90th percentile reaches $319,400. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($253,100 median, 57 roles); Research Engineer ($252,000 median, 419 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($251,622 median, 51 roles).

MLOps demand tracks closely with production ML adoption. As more companies move models from notebooks to production, the need for MLOps grows. The role is well-established at large tech companies and growing fast at mid-stage startups that are hitting the 'our models work in notebooks but break in production' phase.

The AI Job Market Today

The AI job market spans 9,653 open positions across 16 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (7,301), Data Scientist (441), AI Software Engineer (438). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.

The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (193) are outnumbered by mid-level (4,500) and senior (3,455) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 1,505 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.

Remote work availability sits at 6% of all AI roles (568 positions), with 9,010 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.

AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $213,400. Top-quartile roles start at $264,230, and the 90th percentile reaches $319,400. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.

Category matters for compensation. AI Safety roles lead at $253,100 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $141,440. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.

The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Python (1,605 postings), Aws (916 postings), Azure (724 postings), Rag (634 postings), Gcp (522 postings), Pytorch (495 postings), Kubernetes (384 postings), Claude (383 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.

Frequently Asked Questions

Based on 151 roles with disclosed compensation, the median salary for MLOps Engineer positions is $205,000. Actual compensation varies by seniority, location, and company stage.
Kubernetes, Docker, and cloud infrastructure are baseline. Most roles want experience with ML-specific tooling: MLflow, Kubeflow, Weights & Biases, or similar. Strong DevOps fundamentals matter more than ML theory. You need to understand model serving (TorchServe, Triton, vLLM), monitoring (Prometheus, Grafana), and infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Pulumi).
About 6% of the 9,653 AI roles we track offer remote work. Remote availability varies by company and seniority level, with senior and leadership roles more likely to offer location flexibility.
Capital One is among the companies actively hiring for AI and ML talent. Check our company profiles for detailed breakdowns of open roles, salary ranges, and hiring trends.
Common next steps from MLOps Engineer positions include ML Platform Lead, Infrastructure Architect, Engineering Manager. Progression depends on whether you lean toward technical depth, people management, or product strategy.

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