OPT Data Scientist Jobs
Data Scientist roles are among the most actively sponsored positions for F-1 OPT students, with strong demand across tech, finance, and healthcare. Most positions qualify under STEM OPT, giving you up to three years of work authorization. A background in machine learning, Python, or statistical modeling significantly strengthens your candidacy.
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Get Access To All JobsINTRODUCTION
Data is at the center of everything we do. As a startup, we disrupted the credit card industry by individually personalizing every credit card offer using statistical modeling and the relational database, cutting edge technology in 1988! Fast-forward a few years, and this little innovation and our passion for data has skyrocketed us to a Fortune 200 company and a leader in the world of data-driven decision-making.
As a Data Scientist at Capital One, you’ll be part of a team that’s leading the next wave of disruption at a whole new scale, using the latest in computing and machine learning technologies and operating across billions of customer records to unlock the big opportunities that help everyday people save money, time and agony in their financial lives.
Team Description
The AI for Data team builds and ships state of the art machine learning solutions to support data lifecycle within the enterprise. We partner with product, tech and design teams to deliver personalized experiences to our data and platform users to drive productivity and innovation. You will be the driving force to experiment, innovate and create next generation experiences powered by the latest emerging ML technologies.
In this role, you will:
- Partner with a cross-functional team of data scientists, software engineers, and product managers to deliver a product customers love
- Leverage a broad stack of technologies — Python, Conda, AWS, H2O, Spark, and more — to reveal the insights hidden within huge volumes of numeric and textual data
- Build machine learning models through all phases of development, from design through training, evaluation, validation, and implementation
- Flex your interpersonal skills to translate the complexity of your work into tangible business goals
The Ideal Candidate is:
- 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’re comfortable with open-source languages and are passionate about developing further. You have hands-on experience developing data science solutions using open-source tools and cloud computing platforms.
- Statistically-minded. You’ve built models, validated them, and back tested them. You know how to interpret a confusion matrix or a ROC curve. You have experience with clustering, classification, sentiment analysis, time series, and deep learning.
- A data guru. "Big data" doesn't faze you. You have the skills to retrieve, combine, and analyze data from a variety of sources and structures. You know understanding the data is often the key to great data science.
Basic Qualifications:
- Currently has, or is in the process of obtaining one of the following with an expectation that the required degree will be obtained on or before the scheduled start date:
+ A Bachelor's Degree in a quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Operations Research, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related quantitative field) plus 5 years of experience performing data analytics
+ A Master's Degree in a quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Operations Research, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related quantitative field) or an MBA with a quantitative concentration plus 3 years of experience performing data analytics
+ A PhD in a quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Operations Research, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related quantitative field)
Preferred Qualifications:
- Master’s Degree in “STEM” field (Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics), or PhD in “STEM” field (Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics)
- Experience working with AWS
- At least 3 years’ experience in Python, Scala, or R
- At least 3 years’ experience with machine learning
- At least 3 years’ experience with SQL
Capital One will consider sponsoring a new qualified applicant for employment authorization for this position.
COMPENSATION
- 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: $161,800 - $184,600 for Princ Associate, Data Science
New York, NY: $176,500 - $201,400 for Princ Associate, Data Science
San Jose, CA: $176,500 - $201,400 for Princ Associate, Data Science
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 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.com.
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).
INTRODUCTION
Data is at the center of everything we do. As a startup, we disrupted the credit card industry by individually personalizing every credit card offer using statistical modeling and the relational database, cutting edge technology in 1988! Fast-forward a few years, and this little innovation and our passion for data has skyrocketed us to a Fortune 200 company and a leader in the world of data-driven decision-making.
As a Data Scientist at Capital One, you’ll be part of a team that’s leading the next wave of disruption at a whole new scale, using the latest in computing and machine learning technologies and operating across billions of customer records to unlock the big opportunities that help everyday people save money, time and agony in their financial lives.
Team Description
The AI for Data team builds and ships state of the art machine learning solutions to support data lifecycle within the enterprise. We partner with product, tech and design teams to deliver personalized experiences to our data and platform users to drive productivity and innovation. You will be the driving force to experiment, innovate and create next generation experiences powered by the latest emerging ML technologies.
In this role, you will:
- Partner with a cross-functional team of data scientists, software engineers, and product managers to deliver a product customers love
- Leverage a broad stack of technologies — Python, Conda, AWS, H2O, Spark, and more — to reveal the insights hidden within huge volumes of numeric and textual data
- Build machine learning models through all phases of development, from design through training, evaluation, validation, and implementation
- Flex your interpersonal skills to translate the complexity of your work into tangible business goals
The Ideal Candidate is:
- 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’re comfortable with open-source languages and are passionate about developing further. You have hands-on experience developing data science solutions using open-source tools and cloud computing platforms.
- Statistically-minded. You’ve built models, validated them, and back tested them. You know how to interpret a confusion matrix or a ROC curve. You have experience with clustering, classification, sentiment analysis, time series, and deep learning.
- A data guru. "Big data" doesn't faze you. You have the skills to retrieve, combine, and analyze data from a variety of sources and structures. You know understanding the data is often the key to great data science.
Basic Qualifications:
- Currently has, or is in the process of obtaining one of the following with an expectation that the required degree will be obtained on or before the scheduled start date:
+ A Bachelor's Degree in a quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Operations Research, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related quantitative field) plus 5 years of experience performing data analytics
+ A Master's Degree in a quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Operations Research, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related quantitative field) or an MBA with a quantitative concentration plus 3 years of experience performing data analytics
+ A PhD in a quantitative field (Statistics, Economics, Operations Research, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, or a related quantitative field)
Preferred Qualifications:
- Master’s Degree in “STEM” field (Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics), or PhD in “STEM” field (Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics)
- Experience working with AWS
- At least 3 years’ experience in Python, Scala, or R
- At least 3 years’ experience with machine learning
- At least 3 years’ experience with SQL
Capital One will consider sponsoring a new qualified applicant for employment authorization for this position.
COMPENSATION
- 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: $161,800 - $184,600 for Princ Associate, Data Science
New York, NY: $176,500 - $201,400 for Princ Associate, Data Science
San Jose, CA: $176,500 - $201,400 for Princ Associate, Data Science
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 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.com.
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).
See all 304+ OPT Data Scientist Jobs
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Get Access To All JobsTips for Finding OPT Sponsorship as a Data Scientist
Lead with your STEM OPT eligibility
Mention your STEM OPT authorization upfront in your resume summary and cover letter. Employers who understand the 24-month extension are far more likely to engage than those assuming standard 12-month OPT timelines.
Target companies with active USCIS filing histories
Companies that regularly file H-1B visa petitions are experienced with work authorization requirements. Focus your applications on employers with a documented track record of sponsoring international data professionals, not just those with open roles.
Quantify your technical impact, not just your tools
Listing Python and SQL is table stakes. Describe the outcome: a model that reduced churn by 15%, or a pipeline that cut processing time in half. Measurable results make sponsorship conversations easier for hiring managers to justify.
Apply before your OPT clock creates urgency
Start applying at least three to four months before your current authorization expires. Employers notice tight timelines and may hesitate. Earlier outreach signals that you're organized and gives both sides room to negotiate terms.
Clarify your authorization status in your first email
When reaching out to recruiters, briefly state your OPT status and STEM extension eligibility in one sentence. Removing ambiguity early filters out employers who won't sponsor and saves you time with those who will.
Build a portfolio that removes doubt about your skills
A GitHub repository with real data projects, documented methodology, and clean code answers the question before it's asked. Recruiters for Data Scientist roles regularly check portfolios before scheduling interviews.
Data Scientist OPT: Frequently Asked Questions
Does a Data Scientist role qualify for STEM OPT extension?
Yes, Data Scientist positions almost always qualify for the 24-month STEM OPT extension. The role falls under CIP codes tied to computer science, statistics, and applied mathematics. Your degree must be in a STEM-designated field and your employer must enroll in E-Verify. Confirm your degree's CIP code with your DSO before applying.
How do I find Data Scientist jobs that sponsor OPT students?
Migrate Mate filters job listings specifically for employers willing to sponsor international candidates, including OPT students. Searching there saves significant time compared to applying broadly and discovering sponsorship limitations late in the process. Focus on companies in tech, finance, healthcare, and consulting, which have the highest concentration of sponsored Data Scientist roles.
Can I work as a Data Scientist on OPT before my employer files for H-1B?
Yes. OPT authorizes full-time employment in a role directly related to your degree field. You don't need an H-1B to start working. If your employer files an H-1B cap-subject petition before April 1 and you maintain valid OPT, the cap-gap rule protects your authorization through September 30 while the petition is pending.
What degree fields support OPT authorization for Data Scientist roles?
Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Data Science, Information Systems, and Engineering degrees are the most common qualifying fields. Applied economics and quantitative social science degrees may also qualify depending on how your school's DSO classified the program. The key requirement is that your job duties must be directly related to your degree field.
Do I need to report a Data Scientist job to my DSO while on OPT?
Yes. Within 10 days of starting employment, you must report your employer's name, address, job title, and start date to your DSO, who updates your SEVIS record. Failing to report can jeopardize your OPT status. If you change employers or take on a second position, each change requires a separate update.