Principal Innovation Engineer

Parsons Corporation•Reston, VA

19h•$176,900 - $332,400

About The Position

Parsons is seeking a Principal Innovation Engineer to drive applied innovation for a mission-critical global identity and mobility platform deployed across a wide range of operating environments, from remote and austere locations to high-throughput modern facilities to cloud-forward architectures. This is a hands-on senior engineering role for a technologist who can identify promising technologies, evaluate them against real operational needs, build compelling prototypes and demonstrations, and help transition the best ideas into production-ready capabilities. The right candidate will be comfortable working across software, cloud, edge systems, biometrics/peripherals, networking, resilience engineering, and operational workflows. We are looking for someone who can help ensure our platform remains modern, resilient, and visibly state-of-the-art to customers, stakeholders, and industry peers.

Requirements

10+ years of experience in systems engineering, software engineering, platform engineering, or applied R&D
Demonstrated experience turning emerging technology concepts into working prototypes or production capabilities
Strong hands-on technical depth in several of the following: distributed software systems, cloud platforms, especially AWS, edge or embedded deployments, networking or hybrid connectivity, identity or security systems, biometrics or device/peripheral integration, observability or operational analytics
Experience evaluating technology not only for technical merit, but for operational realism, reliability, security, supportability, and lifecycle fit
Experience working in mission-critical, operational, public sector, regulated, or globally distributed environments
Strong communication skills with the ability to present complex ideas clearly to both engineers and non-technical decision makers

Nice To Haves

Experience with identity verification, biometrics, access-control, document technologies, automated gate/peripheral systems, or related domains
Experience designing solutions for remote, austere, power-constrained, or intermittently connected environments
Experience with Java-based distributed systems, microservices, and event-driven architectures
Experience with AWS, Terraform, and hybrid edge/cloud architectures
Familiarity with technologies such as MongoDB, Elasticsearch/OpenSearch, RabbitMQ/Kafka, Grafana, ELK, HashiCorp Consul, Nomad, and Vault
Experience with AI/ML-enabled analytics, computer vision, anomaly detection, or intelligent automation
Experience engaging with vendors, standards bodies, industry forums, or customer technical demonstrations

Responsibilities

Identify, evaluate, and prototype new technologies that improve a globally deployed mission-critical platform
Build working demonstrations, proof-of-concepts, and pilot implementations that can be shown to internal leadership, customers, and external stakeholders
Explore innovation across areas such as: digital identity and verification, biometrics and contactless capture, edge computing and low-power deployments, resilient/offline-first operations, cloud-native modernization, analytics and AI-assisted workflows, automation and operator experience, secure peripherals and smart devices
Assess emerging commercial and open technologies for fit, maturity, operational value, security implications, and deployability
Translate innovation ideas into practical architectures that can operate in low-bandwidth environments with intermittent connectivity, power-constraints, environmental challenges, or infrastructure limitations
Assist leadership with transition from prototypes to implementation roadmaps
Produce technical trade studies, architecture recommendations, demonstration plans, and innovation briefings
Support technical presentations, showcases, and evaluations with customers, sponsors, and partners
Shape an innovation pipeline from concept to prototype to fieldable capability