Capital One to cut Discover engineers

Capital One is cutting more than 1,100 Discover jobs, with software engineering roles taking the biggest hit as the merger moves into systems integration. (paymentweek.com) A February 25 notice to Illinois officials listed 1,139 role eliminations tied to the Riverwoods, Illinois reporting structure, with separations scheduled from May 4 through October 2, 2026. Capital One told Illinois the cuts span 302 job titles. (paymentweek.com; bankingdive.com) The deepest cuts are in application engineering: 124 application engineer roles, 54 senior associate application engineering roles, and 38 principal-level application engineering positions are slated to end by May 4. Payment Week described those jobs as software development work across finance tools, legacy systems maintenance, and cloud platforms. (paymentweek.com) Capital One completed its acquisition of Discover on May 18, 2025, after regulators approved the deal on April 18, 2025. The company said at closing that customer accounts would remain unchanged while conversion work moved ahead. (investor.capitalone.com; investor.capitalone.com) That timeline helps explain why engineering jobs are now under pressure: banks merging card platforms have to decide which code, data pipes, and internal tools survive and which ones get retired. Capital One said the reductions are part of its “continued journey to integrate Discover with Capital One.” (investor.capitalone.com; bankingdive.com) The March filing is the second large post-merger reduction disclosed in Illinois. Banking Dive reported that Capital One had already notified the state in September 2025 that about 382 Discover employees would be cut between November 2025 and March 2026, after a separate wind-down of Discover Home Loans that affected 215 jobs. (paymentsdive.com) Illinois records cited by Banking Dive put the disclosed total at 1,748 scheduled layoffs between October 2025 and October 2026. NBC Chicago reported that state data listed 1,075 layoffs in May, 81 in June, three in July, one in September, and one in October in this latest round. (bankingdive.com; nbcchicago.com) Capital One said the Riverwoods site is not closing and that other operations will continue there. The company said it gave at least 60 days’ notice and is offering enhanced severance, benefits, outplacement support, and access to open roles for qualified employees. (bankingdive.com; paymentweek.com) Payment Week linked the engineering cuts to a wider industry push toward artificial intelligence tools that can automate parts of software work, but Capital One did not publicly cite artificial intelligence as the reason these roles were selected. What the company has said, repeatedly, is that it is moving “thoughtfully” through integration. (paymentweek.com; bankingdive.com)