Principal Engineer, API & MCP Platform

Babel Street is the trusted technology partner for the world’s most advanced

identity intelligence and risk operations. We deliver advanced AI and data

analytics solutions providing unmatched, analysis-ready data regardless of

language, proactive risk identification, 360-degree insights, high-speed

automation, and seamless integration into existing systems. Babel Street

empowers government and commercial organizations to transform high-stakes

identity and risk operations into a strategic advantage. The actionable

insights we deliver safeguard lives and protect critical assets around the

world. Babel Street is headquartered in Reston, Virginia, with regional offices

in Boston, MA and Cleveland, OH, and international offices in Australia, Canada,

Israel, Japan, and the U.K. For more information, visit www.babelstreet.com

[http://www.babelstreet.com/].

Role Summary

We are seeking a Principal Engineer to lead Babel Street’s API and MCP platform

strategy and delivery as we evolve toward an AI-native, agent-driven platform.

This is a hands-on, senior technical leadership role responsible for defining

and delivering API-first platform capabilities that enable both developers and

AI agents to interact with Babel Street’s services. You will lead the design and

implementation of semantic APIs, Model Context Protocol (MCP) integrations, and

context-aware service patterns that power next-generation intelligence

workflows.

This role requires a finger-on-keyboard engineer who can both define direction

and deliver foundational systems. You will partner closely with AI, Data, and

Platform teams to ensure Babel Street’s APIs and services are consistent,

discoverable, scalable, and optimized for agentic workflows.

You will work in close partnership with the Architecture function to align on

long-term technical direction, ensuring API and MCP platform decisions are

consistent with the company’s broader architectural vision while maintaining a

strong focus on execution and delivery.

This is a hybrid role working out of either our Reston, VA or Somerville, MA

office. Full remote may be considered.

Why This Role Matters

This role will be instrumental to Babel Street’s AI-native technology strategy.

The API and MCP platform will serve as the interface layer between data, AI, and

product capabilities, enabling agents, developers, and systems to interact

seamlessly.

This is a high-impact, senior technical leadership role with broad influence

across the organization and the opportunity to shape the future of Babel

Street’s platform. The position spans four core domains:

API Platform & Strategy

You will define and lead Babel Street’s API-first platform

strategy, establishing consistent patterns for service design, versioning,

discoverability, and governance.

You will help evolve the platform toward agent-ready APIs, ensuring services are

consumable by both human developers and AI agents. You will establish standards

for API consistency, reliability, and performance across the organization.

You will also work closely with product and engineering teams to ensure APIs are

designed as first-class platform capabilities, not just service interfaces.

MCP & Agent Integration

You will lead Babel Street’s Model Context Protocol (MCP) strategy and

implementation, enabling agents and AI systems to interact with services in a

standardized and scalable way. This includes defining patterns for:

* MCP service exposure

* Tool and service discovery

* Agent-to-service communication

* Context-aware interactions

You will partner closely with AI and platform teams to enable agent-native

workflows across the organization.

Semantic APIs & Agent-Ready Interfaces

You will lead the design of semantic, agent-friendly APIs, where documentation

becomes a first-class interface for AI-driven systems. This includes defining

standards for:

* API descriptions optimized for agents

* Schema consistency and semantic modeling

* Tool and service discoverability

* API documentation optimized for agent consumption

You will establish best practices for documentation-as-code, ensuring APIs are

designed for both developers and AI systems.

Context Management & Runtime Patterns

You will define patterns for context-aware APIs and services, including:

* Context management and retrieval

* Context caching

* Session and state management

* Memory-aware service interactions

You will help design scalable context-aware systems leveraging technologies such

as Vertex AI Context Caching and related frameworks.

Key Responsibilities

• * Partner closely with Architecture to define and lead Babel Street’s API and
• MCP platform strategy
• * Design and deliver semantic, agent-ready APIs
• * Establish MCP standards and implementation patterns
• * Define context management patterns for agent workflows
• * Partner with AI and Data teams to enable agent-native architectures
• * Establish API governance and platform standards
• * Build foundational frameworks and reusable components
• * Provide hands-on technical leadership and mentorship
• * Partner with Google and other vendors on platform capabilities
• * Drive adoption of API and MCP standards across engineering teams
• Required Qualifications
• * 10+ years of software engineering experience
• * Experience operating at Principal Engineer or Staff+ level
• * Strong hands-on experience building distributed systems
• * Experience designing and building API-first platforms
• * Experience with cloud-native architectures (GCP preferred)
• * Experience building developer platforms or service-oriented architectures
• * Strong system design and architectural thinking skills
• * Proven ability to lead cross-team technical initiatives

Preferred Qualifications

• * Hands-on work with Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
• * Familiarity with Vertex AI Agent Engine
• * Background in ADK and reasoning frameworks such as LangChain
• * Understanding of the Model Context Protocol (MCP)
• * Exposure to data warehouse technologies like BigQuery and Snowflake
• * Knowledge of Apigee or similar API gateway solutions
• * Proven ability to design semantic APIs for AI or agent-driven use cases
• * Experience managing context or building memory systems
• * Development of agent-based architectures or orchestration frameworks
• * Exposure to Anti-Gravity
• What Success Looks Like
• 30 Days
• * Assess current API and platform architecture
• * Define API and MCP platform strategy
• * Identify early opportunities for standardization
• 60 Days
• * Deliver initial platform frameworks and standards
• * Begin rollout of semantic API patterns
• * Establish MCP integration approach
• 90 Days
• * Agent-ready APIs in production
• * MCP-enabled services deployed
• * Clear platform standards adopted across teams
• * Measurable improvement in API consistency and developer velocity

Benefits

at Babel Street (just to name a few...)

* Health

Benefits

Babel Street covers 85-100% monthly premium costs for

Medical, Dental, Vision, Life & Disability insurances – for you and your

family!

* Retirement Plans: Babel Street offers both a Traditional and Roth 401(K) with

a very competitive match.

* Unlimited Flexible Leave: We trust our employees to manage their own time and

balance their personal and work lives.

* Holidays: Babel Street provides employees with 12 paid Federal Holidays

* Tuition Reimbursement: We are committed to investing in our employees. One

way we do that is with our Tuition Reimbursement Program for continuing

education.

Babel Street is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. All qualified

applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex,

gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, national origin,

disability, protected Veteran status, age, or any other characteristic protected

by law. Further, Babel Street will not discriminate against applicants for

inquiring about, discussing or disclosing their pay or, in certain

circumstances, the pay of their co‐worker, Pay Transparency Nondiscrimination

[https://www.dol.gov/ofccp/pdf/pay-transp_%20English_formattedESQA508c.pdf]. In

addition, Babel Street's policy is to provide reasonable accommodation to

qualified employees who have protected disabilities to the extent required by

applicable laws, regulations and ordinances where a particular employee works.

Upon request, we will provide you with more information about such

accommodations.

Range for this position based on qualifications and experience

$220,000—$240,000 USD