Sr. Director of Engineering - API

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.

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. 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