# Applied Researcher I (AI Foundations, VLM) [Capital One](https://www.jorb.ai/firms/capital-one.md) · New York · United States · [Research / Applied Science](https://www.jorb.ai/jobs/research-applied-science.md) Capital One is hiring a Applied Researcher I (AI Foundations, VLM) in New York. Posted 2026-09-02; applications close 2026-11-01. **Apply**: https://capitalone.wd12.myworkdayjobs.com/Capital_One/job/New-York-NY/Applied-Researcher-I--AI-Foundations--VLM-_R999796-1 Posted 17d ago. ## Role details ## Applied Researcher I (AI Foundations, VLM) At Capital One, we are creating trustworthy and reliable AI systems, changing banking for good. For years, Capital One has been leading the industry in using machine learning to create real-time, intelligent, automated customer experiences—from informing customers about unusual charges to answering their questions in real time. We are committed to building world-class applied science and engineering teams and continue our industry-leading capabilities with breakthrough product experiences and scalable, high-performance AI infrastructure. In this role, you will help bring the transformative power of emerging AI capabilities to reimagine how we serve our customers and businesses. ## Team Description The AI Foundations team is at the center of bringing our vision for AI at Capital One to life. Our work touches every aspect of the research life cycle, from partnering with Academia to building production systems. We work with product, technology, and business leaders to apply the state of the art in AI to our business. ## In this role, you will: - Partner with cross-functional teams of data scientists, software engineers, machine learning engineers, and product managers to deliver AI-powered products that change how customers interact with their money. - Leverage a broad stack of technologies—PyTorch, AWS Ultraclusters, Hugging Face, Lightning, VectorDBs, and more—to reveal insights hidden within large volumes of numeric and textual data. - Build AI foundation models across all phases of development, from design through training, evaluation, validation, and implementation. - Engage in high-impact applied research to take the latest AI developments and advance them into the next generation of customer experiences. - Use interpersonal skills to translate the complexity of your work into tangible business goals. ## The Ideal Candidate - You love analyzing and creating, and you share our passion to do the right thing—ultimately making the right decision for our customers. - **Innovative:** You continually research and evaluate emerging technologies, stay current on published state-of-the-art methods and applications, and seek opportunities to apply them. - **Creative:** You thrive on defining solutions to big, undefined problems, ask hard questions, pursue answers, and are comfortable sharing new ideas. - **Leader:** You challenge conventional thinking, work with stakeholders to identify and improve the status quo, and are passionate about talent development for your team and beyond. - **Technical:** You are comfortable with open-source languages and passionate about continued growth. You have hands-on experience developing AI foundation models and solutions using open-source tools and cloud computing platforms. - You have a deep understanding of the foundations of AI methodologies. - You have experience building large deep learning models (e.g., for language, images, events, or graphs), as well as expertise in one or more of the following: training optimization, self-supervised learning, robustness, explainability, RLHF. - You have an engineering mindset demonstrated by a track record of delivering models at scale across both training data and inference volumes. - You have experience delivering libraries, platform-level code, or solution-level code to existing products. - You are a professional with a track record of generating high-quality ideas or improving existing machine learning ideas, demonstrated through accomplishments such as first-author publications or relevant projects. - You can own and pursue a research agenda, including choosing impactful research problems and independently executing long-running projects. ## Basic Qualifications - Currently has, or is in the process of obtaining, a PhD in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, AI, Mathematics, or related fields (with an exception that the required degree will be obtained on or before the scheduled start date), or an M.S. in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, AI, Mathematics, or related fields plus 2 years of experience in Applied Research. ## Preferred Qualifications - PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Computer Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Electrical Engineering, or related fields. - LLM-related experience, including: - PhD focus on NLP or a Master’s with 5 years of industrial NLP research experience. - Multiple publications on topics related to the pre-training of large language models (e.g., technical reports of pre-trained LLMs, self-supervised learning techniques, model pre-training optimization). - Experience as part of a team that trained a large language model from scratch (10B+ parameters, 500B+ tokens). - Publications in deep learning theory. - Publications at ACL, NAACL, EMNLP, NeurIPS, ICML, or ICLR. - Optimization (Training & Inference), including: - PhD focus on topics related to optimizing training of very large deep learning models. - Multiple years of experience and/or publications on one or more topics: model sparsification, quantization, training parallelism/partitioning design, gradient checkpointing, model compression. - Experience optimizing training for a 10B+ model. - Deep knowledge of deep learning algorithmic and/or optimizer design. - Experience with compiler design. - Finetuning, including: - PhD focus on topics related to guiding LLMs with further tasks (supervised finetuning, instruction-tuning, dialogue-finetuning, parameter tuning). - Demonstrated knowledge of principles of transfer learning, model adaptation, and model guidance. - Experience deploying a fine-tuned large language model. ## Compensation and Benefits 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: - Cambridge, MA: $218,700 - $249,600 (Applied Researcher I) - McLean, VA: $218,700 - $249,600 (Applied Researcher I) - New York, NY: $238,600 - $272,300 (Applied Researcher I) - San Francisco, CA: $238,600 - $272,300 (Applied Researcher I) - San Jose, CA: $238,600 - $272,300 (Applied Researcher I) This role is also eligible to earn performance-based incentive compensation, which may include cash bonuses 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. Eligibility varies based on full or part-time status, exempt or non-exempt status, and management level. ## Additional Information - 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. ## Applying to this role This Applied Researcher I (AI Foundations, VLM) role at Capital One runs through the firm's own careers portal and expects a CV and cover letter written specifically for the posting, not a portable submission carried across firms. Jorb AI's application agent tailors a CV and cover letter from your background to this posting and tracks the role alongside the rest of your applications. [Tailor this application](https://www.jorb.ai/signup?ref=job-atom&firm=capital-one&job=6aa81ed37fd50c20a21075dd) ## More open roles at Capital One - [Commercial Analyst](https://www.jorb.ai/jobs/6aac496efeaa43bb099f5b5f.md) – London, posted 2d ago - [Senior Associate, Product Management- Card Core](https://www.jorb.ai/jobs/6aac8130201d0e60c757647f.md) – New York, posted 2d ago - [Senior Associate, Product Management - Applied AI Servicing](https://www.jorb.ai/jobs/6aaabf9b07df7cf32108894f.md) – New York, posted 3d ago - [Associate, Support Operations](https://www.jorb.ai/jobs/6aa4270bc09df132a623b887.md) – New York, posted 8d ago - [Part Time Branch Ambassador, Cypress Hills](https://www.jorb.ai/jobs/6aa37ef3851186f72ef8e086.md) – New York, posted 9d ago ## Other open Research / Applied Science roles - [PhD Research Associate (Industry PhD Program) - Artificial Intelligence, SAP Labs Singapore](https://www.jorb.ai/jobs/69503ab2340e619957b1718c.md) at [SAP](https://www.jorb.ai/firms/sap.md) – Singapore, posted 8mo ago - [Junior Quantitative Risk Analyst](https://www.jorb.ai/jobs/6aad60ad4e267ef744d874bf.md) at [ActiveViam](https://www.jorb.ai/firms/activeviam.md) – London, posted 16h ago - [2027 Machine Learning Research Associate Program - PhD (New York)](https://www.jorb.ai/jobs/6a2c0d0370b3225d345daa2b.md) at [Morgan Stanley](https://www.jorb.ai/firms/morgan-stanley.md) – New York, posted 3mo ago - [AI Research Scientist, Scientific ML](https://www.jorb.ai/jobs/6aacb7f709d5c433f9d00485.md) at [Western Digital](https://www.jorb.ai/firms/western-digital.md) – Singapore, posted 1d ago - [Data Science Intern, Algorithms (Summer 2027 - SF/NYC)](https://www.jorb.ai/jobs/6aac7f9a02a3b933157b5b52.md) at [Lyft](https://www.jorb.ai/firms/lyft.md) – New York, posted 1d ago --- Updated: 2026-09-19 Canonical: https://www.jorb.ai/jobs/6aa81ed37fd50c20a21075dd