Meet Catherine McGarvey, SVP of Developer Experience

We’re excited to chat with Catherine McGarvey, SVP and Head of Capital One’s Developer Experience organization. Catherine joined Capital One in July 2024 after spending the last decade improving developer experiences at companies like VMware and Pivotal, where she honed a pragmatic, developer-first approach to building platforms and products. Her deep expertise across hardware, software, consulting and research and development gives her a unique perspective on what it takes to create high-impact solutions in large, complex organizations.

Since joining Capital One, Catherine has been focused on enhancing the developer experience—organizing teams around high-leverage outcomes, elevating visibility around critical engineering initiatives and enabling developers to spend more of their valuable time building great software.

We sat down with Catherine to talk about her career journey, what drew her to Capital One one year ago and her approach to empowering developers as the technology landscape rapidly evolves.

My time at VMware (and previously Pivotal) was incredibly formative—I was with the business through four acquisitions and my role evolved significantly over that time. 

I started out in the consulting side of the company, helping get startups off the ground and doing lean product development that was focused on building a customer base from scratch. Later, I went into technical pre-sales where I learned more about selling a platform as a product offering.

From there, I moved back into software development, which was a really great growth experience for me. I didn't know anyone on the new team, the product was technically complex, in memory data grid and disconnected from the broader strategy, plus I had to travel frequently across the country to support it. But it was a growth moment—bringing synergy to that effort, both technically and organizationally, is something I’m really proud of.

More recently at VMware, just prior to joining the team here at Capital One, I was leading a number of products with the main one being a platform as a product service to run on both VMs and reimagining that experience on Kubernetes. One constant in that role was how I could make things easier for developers to focus on the creative aspects of engineering, whether that’s streamlining infrastructure management, simplifying credential workflows or creating platforms that just worked. It was all about enabling them to focus on their applications and their domain code without having to worry about admin, infrastructure and management work–-this focus on app code is critical to creating lift for developers.

I was at an inflection point in my career—VMware had just been acquired again, and I was looking for a new challenge where I could make a real impact as a leader. I had worked with many Fortune 500 companies before, but not in house—and was intrigued at the complexity of one in a highly regulated sector like financial services. The more I learned about Capital One, the more I was impressed. 

Capital One has built an enviable reputation for innovation: going all in on the cloud early on, embracing AI ahead of its peers and operating with a level of strategic alignment I hadn’t seen at other companies of similar scale. In a lot of ways, I could see that Capital One was already operating like an innovative tech company. 

I was also attracted to the people-centric culture and the energy the team brings to learning and improving. And on top of that, what really clinched it for me was the alignment between the work being done here and what I was already passionate about—empowering developers, simplifying workflows and operating at the intersection of product, platform and customer experience.

For these reasons and more, the prospect of joining Capital One was extremely compelling.

Three big things stand out.

First, reorganizing our developer-focused teams around outcomes rather than discrete deliverables. For example, we shifted from “we’re shipping a feature” to “we’re enabling developers to deploy with confidence.” This mindset shift has been powerful, giving teams autonomy in how work gets done, while clearly defining what needs to be achieved. Teams can get even more creative with the work, yet there is still alignment in how success is measured.

Second, elevating visibility. Teams were doing amazing work—like reducing vulnerabilities through leaner base images—but we weren’t telling that story effectively to wider teams. We revamped our communications, so developers can see and share the value we’re creating, as well as provide feedback in real time. 

Third, driving continuous deployment confidence. This is about much more than tests—it’s about whether you’d hit deploy at 2 p.m. on a Friday before a long weekend. That means fast, reliable test suites, rollback capabilities and transparency around test coverage and flakiness. In other words, we’re reframing what “good” looks like. The focus here is not just on arbitrary tests, but on confidence—which makes it easier for developers to deliver with speed and assurance.

It starts with proximity to developer’s challenges—offering tight feedback loops so they can share insights with you and truly empathizing with those problems will go a long way. Next is embracing iterative improvement—what’s the next step we can take to move the needle and how do we keep on doing that consistently? And finally, using the right metrics for success. If we can’t clearly tell whether we’ve made something better, we probably haven’t.

Beyond the process, it’s also about communication, clarity and culture. Writing things down concisely, aligning on principles before jumping into debate and actively listening to different perspectives—all of these create the environment where great developer experiences can be built and scaled.

There’s a lot happening in AI that’s exciting. Agentic flows, for example—using LLMs to automate small, but necessary tasks like remediating vulnerabilities, getting the latest version of all your libraries or upgrading your node version. Automation here frees developers to focus on the fun parts of engineering rather than the trivial tasks.  

AI-powered coding assistants continue to provide developers lift by helping them write code faster and more efficiently. I personally used a coding assistant to learn TypeScript after years of writing AngularJS, React and other JavaScript libraries—it was like having a dedicated tutor. With coding assistants, developers can spend more time on the creative aspect of engineering and less time on things like debugging code and repetitive jobs. These tools can be further tailored to meet developer needs by using feedback and productivity metrics to enhance their impact on development workflows and foster an environment where productivity and code quality can thrive. I’m excited to see how these tools evolve in the future to shape AI-powered coding and give developers even more lift.

For a long time, yes. It goes back to 9th grade when I started learning Visual Basic. It was my first taste of programming, and I just loved it. It felt like being creative and problem solving wrapped into one. It’s when I first discovered I really enjoy debugging things.

The moments that mean the most to me are when I see someone I’ve mentored get promoted. There’s a quiet pride in knowing you helped someone reach their next level. Of course, being in this industry, I love product launches too—when a developer turns to you and says, “I really like what you built,” that’s the dream.

I live on Long Island with my husband and kids—we have a decent-sized family so that keeps me very busy. I also enjoy hiking, reading (especially Agatha Christie) and running—even if I’m what some might call a jogger, I prefer the term “slow runner.” I’m just happy to be out there and active, enjoying nature.

New to tech at Capital One? We're building innovative solutions in-house and transforming the financial industry:

• Explore open tech jobs and join our world-class team in changing banking for good.

• See how we’re building and running serverless applications at a massive scale.

• Read more from our technologists on our tech blog.