Current PhD, Applied Research Internship Program - Summer 2026
Capital One
Current PhD, Applied Research Internship Program - Summer 2026
Job Description
Overview
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, our applications of AI & ML are bringing humanity and simplicity to banking. We are committed to building world-class applied science and engineering teams and continue delivering our industry leading capabilities with breakthrough product experiences and scalable, high-performance AI infrastructure. At Capital One, you will help bring the transformative power of emerging AI capabilities to reimagine how we serve our customers and businesses who have come to love the products and services we build.Participation in the program requires that you are located in the continental United States with in-person attendance at your assigned location, in accordance with Capital One’s hybrid working model.This is a paid internship. This is a limited-time internship position, and Capital One will not sponsor a new applicant for employment authorization for this position. However, a full-time Applied Research role, for which you may be considered upon completion of the internship (subject to business need, market conditions, and other factors) is eligible for employer immigration sponsorship.Basic Qualifications:Currently enrolled in an accredited PhD Program
Completed 2nd year of PhD coursework by program start date (for example: 2nd year of PhD program completed by program start date OR qualifies, at minimum, as a 2nd year in PhD program because of completed Master’s)
Completed 3rd or 4th year of PhD Program
PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Computer Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Electrical Engineering or related fields
Programming experience (e.g. Python) and experience with at least one deep learning framework (e.g. PyTorch)
Publications in leading conferences such as ICLR, NeurIPs, ICML, ACL, NAACL, EMNLP, KDD, or CVPR
Focused area of research in one of the following areas:
Foundation Models (Language, Vision, Graphs, Time Series), including finetuning and pre-training
LLMs (Agentic AI, Reasoning, Test Time Compute Models, Mixture of Experts)
Reinforcement Learning (World Models, Reasoning, GRPO, PPO, RLHF)
Causal Inference
User Behavior Modeling
Model Inference Optimization
Interpretability, Responsible/Trustworthy AI Models
In this role, you will:
Join Capital One for a full-time, 12 week, summer applied research experience, discovering solutions to real world, large-scale problems.
Engage in high impact applied research with the goal of taking the latest AI developments and pushing them into the next generation of customer experiences, or contributing to publications in this field.
Partner with a cross-functional team of applied researchers, data scientists, software engineers, machine learning engineers and product managers to test and design AI- powered products that change how customers interact with their money.
Leverage a broad stack of technologies — Pytorch, AWS Ultraclusters, Huggingface, Lightning, VectorDBs, and more — to reveal the insights hidden within huge volumes of numeric and textual data.
Flex your interpersonal skills to translate the complexity of your work into tangible business goals.
Partner with leading researchers to publish papers at top academic conferences.
Develop professionally through networking sessions, technical deep dives and executive speaker sessions from across Capital One.
You love the process of analyzing and creating, but also share our passion to do the right thing. You want to work on problems that will help change banking for good.
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 possess a strong foundation in mathematics, deep learning theory, and the engineering required for contributing to the development of AI.
Determined. Strengthen your field of study by applying theory to practice. Bring your ideas to life in industry.
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.Capital One offers a comprehensive, competitive, and inclusive set of health, financial and other benefits that support your total well-being. Learn more at theCapital One Careers website. Eligibility varies based on full or part-time status, exempt or non-exempt status, and management level.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 RecruitingAccommodation@capitalone.com. 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 Careers@capitalone.comCapital 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).
Locations
- New York, New York, United States
- San Jose, California, United States
- Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
- McLean, Virginia New York, New YorkMcLean
Salary
45,000 - 80,000 USD / yearly
* This is an estimated range based on market data and may vary based on experience and qualifications.
Skills Required
- Python programmingintermediate
- PyTorch deep learning frameworkintermediate
- Foundation Models (Language, Vision, Graphs, Time Series)intermediate
- LLMs (Agentic AI, Reasoning, Test Time Compute Models, Mixture of Experts)intermediate
- Reinforcement Learning (World Models, Reasoning, GRPO, PPO, RLHF)intermediate
- Causal Inferenceintermediate
- User Behavior Modelingintermediate
- Model Inference Optimizationintermediate
- Interpretability and Responsible AIintermediate
Required Qualifications
- Currently enrolled in an accredited PhD Program (experience)
- Completed 2nd year of PhD coursework by program start date (experience)
- Preferred: Completed 3rd or 4th year of PhD Program (experience)
- Preferred: PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Computer Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Electrical Engineering or related fields (experience)
- Preferred: Publications in leading conferences (ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML, ACL, NAACL, EMNLP, KDD, CVPR) (experience)
Responsibilities
- Join Capital One for a full-time, 12 week, summer applied research experience
- Engage in high impact applied research to push AI developments into customer experiences or publications
- Partner with cross-functional team of applied researchers, data scientists, software engineers, ML engineers and product managers
- Leverage technologies like PyTorch, AWS Ultraclusters, Huggingface, Lightning, VectorDBs to analyze large-scale data
- Translate complex work into tangible business goals
- Partner with researchers to publish papers at top academic conferences
- Develop professionally through networking, technical deep dives and executive sessions
Benefits
- general: Comprehensive, competitive, and inclusive set of health, financial and other benefits
Answer 10 quick questions to check your fit for Current PhD, Applied Research Internship Program - Summer 2026 @ Capital One.
Current PhD, Applied Research Internship Program - Summer 2026
Capital One
Current PhD, Applied Research Internship Program - Summer 2026
Job Description
Overview
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, our applications of AI & ML are bringing humanity and simplicity to banking. We are committed to building world-class applied science and engineering teams and continue delivering our industry leading capabilities with breakthrough product experiences and scalable, high-performance AI infrastructure. At Capital One, you will help bring the transformative power of emerging AI capabilities to reimagine how we serve our customers and businesses who have come to love the products and services we build.Participation in the program requires that you are located in the continental United States with in-person attendance at your assigned location, in accordance with Capital One’s hybrid working model.This is a paid internship. This is a limited-time internship position, and Capital One will not sponsor a new applicant for employment authorization for this position. However, a full-time Applied Research role, for which you may be considered upon completion of the internship (subject to business need, market conditions, and other factors) is eligible for employer immigration sponsorship.Basic Qualifications:Currently enrolled in an accredited PhD Program
Completed 2nd year of PhD coursework by program start date (for example: 2nd year of PhD program completed by program start date OR qualifies, at minimum, as a 2nd year in PhD program because of completed Master’s)
Completed 3rd or 4th year of PhD Program
PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Computer Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Electrical Engineering or related fields
Programming experience (e.g. Python) and experience with at least one deep learning framework (e.g. PyTorch)
Publications in leading conferences such as ICLR, NeurIPs, ICML, ACL, NAACL, EMNLP, KDD, or CVPR
Focused area of research in one of the following areas:
Foundation Models (Language, Vision, Graphs, Time Series), including finetuning and pre-training
LLMs (Agentic AI, Reasoning, Test Time Compute Models, Mixture of Experts)
Reinforcement Learning (World Models, Reasoning, GRPO, PPO, RLHF)
Causal Inference
User Behavior Modeling
Model Inference Optimization
Interpretability, Responsible/Trustworthy AI Models
In this role, you will:
Join Capital One for a full-time, 12 week, summer applied research experience, discovering solutions to real world, large-scale problems.
Engage in high impact applied research with the goal of taking the latest AI developments and pushing them into the next generation of customer experiences, or contributing to publications in this field.
Partner with a cross-functional team of applied researchers, data scientists, software engineers, machine learning engineers and product managers to test and design AI- powered products that change how customers interact with their money.
Leverage a broad stack of technologies — Pytorch, AWS Ultraclusters, Huggingface, Lightning, VectorDBs, and more — to reveal the insights hidden within huge volumes of numeric and textual data.
Flex your interpersonal skills to translate the complexity of your work into tangible business goals.
Partner with leading researchers to publish papers at top academic conferences.
Develop professionally through networking sessions, technical deep dives and executive speaker sessions from across Capital One.
You love the process of analyzing and creating, but also share our passion to do the right thing. You want to work on problems that will help change banking for good.
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 possess a strong foundation in mathematics, deep learning theory, and the engineering required for contributing to the development of AI.
Determined. Strengthen your field of study by applying theory to practice. Bring your ideas to life in industry.
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.Capital One offers a comprehensive, competitive, and inclusive set of health, financial and other benefits that support your total well-being. Learn more at theCapital One Careers website. Eligibility varies based on full or part-time status, exempt or non-exempt status, and management level.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 RecruitingAccommodation@capitalone.com. 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 Careers@capitalone.comCapital 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).
Locations
- New York, New York, United States
- San Jose, California, United States
- Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
- McLean, Virginia New York, New YorkMcLean
Salary
45,000 - 80,000 USD / yearly
* This is an estimated range based on market data and may vary based on experience and qualifications.
Skills Required
- Python programmingintermediate
- PyTorch deep learning frameworkintermediate
- Foundation Models (Language, Vision, Graphs, Time Series)intermediate
- LLMs (Agentic AI, Reasoning, Test Time Compute Models, Mixture of Experts)intermediate
- Reinforcement Learning (World Models, Reasoning, GRPO, PPO, RLHF)intermediate
- Causal Inferenceintermediate
- User Behavior Modelingintermediate
- Model Inference Optimizationintermediate
- Interpretability and Responsible AIintermediate
Required Qualifications
- Currently enrolled in an accredited PhD Program (experience)
- Completed 2nd year of PhD coursework by program start date (experience)
- Preferred: Completed 3rd or 4th year of PhD Program (experience)
- Preferred: PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Computer Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Electrical Engineering or related fields (experience)
- Preferred: Publications in leading conferences (ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML, ACL, NAACL, EMNLP, KDD, CVPR) (experience)
Responsibilities
- Join Capital One for a full-time, 12 week, summer applied research experience
- Engage in high impact applied research to push AI developments into customer experiences or publications
- Partner with cross-functional team of applied researchers, data scientists, software engineers, ML engineers and product managers
- Leverage technologies like PyTorch, AWS Ultraclusters, Huggingface, Lightning, VectorDBs to analyze large-scale data
- Translate complex work into tangible business goals
- Partner with researchers to publish papers at top academic conferences
- Develop professionally through networking, technical deep dives and executive sessions
Benefits
- general: Comprehensive, competitive, and inclusive set of health, financial and other benefits
Answer 10 quick questions to check your fit for Current PhD, Applied Research Internship Program - Summer 2026 @ Capital One.