Distinguished Software Engineer - Identity
What You Will Lead:
The Move to Just-In-Time (JIT): Architect the transition away from "permanent access" to a model of zero standing privileges. You will design the systems that enable seamless, automated access elevation and revocation based on real-time necessity.
Policy-as-Code & Abstraction:Lead the effort to abstract IGA components, moving us toward a centralized, policy-based access model that is agnostic of the underlying stack and highly automated.
Contextual & Adaptive Security: Design an authorization fabric that factors in multi-dimensional telemetry—including device posture, network risk, and user behavior—to make dynamic, risk-based access decisions.
Engineering Self-Sufficiency: Champion an "Identity-as-a-Service" internal culture, building developer-centric APIs and self-service capabilities that allow our product teams to move fast without compromising our rigorous regulatory guardrails.
Governance in a Regulated Landscape:Navigate the complexity of a highly regulated financial environment, ensuring that our leap into the future of IAM meets and exceeds the most stringent compliance and audit standards.
The Visionary We Need: You are a recognized leader in the Identity space who understands that the "Cloud Journey" is only the foundation. You have experience decoupling legacy monoliths, implementing Open Policy Agent (OPA) or similar policy engines, and building resilient, high-scale distributed systems. You don’t just "manage" identity; you treat Identity as the core engine of a modern Zero Trust architecture.
Distinguished Engineers are expected to lead through technical contribution. You will operate as a trusted advisor for our key technologies, platforms and capability domains, creating clear and concise communications, code samples, blog posts and other material to share knowledge both inside and outside the organization. You will specialize in a particular subject area, but your input and impact will be sought and expected throughout the organization.
If you are ready to provide thought leadership and build engineering excellence across Capital One's engineering teams, come join us in our mission to change banking for good.
Key responsibilities:
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
Basic Qualifications:Preferred Qualifications: Bachelor's or Master's Degree in Computer Science or a related field
10+ years of professional experience coding in commonly used languages (Java, Python, Go, JavaScript/TypeScript, Swift)
8+ years of professional experience in the full lifecycle of system development, from conception through architecture, implementation, testing, deployment and production support
3+ years of experience with public or private cloud technologies
1+ years of experience with IAM
3+ years of experience modernizing legacy systems
1+ years of experience with AI coding tools
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 Distinguished EngineerPlano, TX: $244,700 - $279,200 for Distinguished Engineer
Richmond, VA: $244,700 - $279,200 for Distinguished 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.