Sr. Director of Engineering - API

Babel Street • Reston, VA

5d • $220,000 - $240,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

Babel Street is seeking a senior technical leader to lead its API and Model Context Protocol (MCP) platform strategy and delivery as the company evolves toward an AI-native, agent-driven platform. The role is described in the posting as a Principal Engineer and is hands-on, combining technical direction with implementation of foundational systems. It will shape API-first platform capabilities that enable developers and AI agents to use Babel Street services, including semantic APIs, MCP integrations, and context-aware service patterns.

The position partners closely with Architecture to align API and MCP decisions with the broader architectural vision while emphasizing execution and delivery. It also works with AI, Data, Platform, product, and engineering teams to make services consistent, discoverable, scalable, and suitable for agentic workflows. The role covers API platform strategy and governance; MCP and agent integration; semantic, agent-ready interfaces and documentation; and context management and runtime patterns, including caching, session and state management, and memory-aware interactions. The position is hybrid from the Reston, Virginia, or Somerville, Massachusetts, office; full remote may be considered.

Babel Street describes the role as instrumental to its AI-native technology strategy, with broad organizational influence and responsibility for enabling agents, developers, and systems to interact with data, AI, and product capabilities. The posting outlines success milestones at 30, 60, and 90 days, including assessing the current platform, defining standards and strategy, delivering initial frameworks, and deploying agent-ready APIs and MCP-enabled services.

The stated salary range is $220,000–$240,000 USD, based on qualifications and experience.

Requirements

• 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 is preferred.
• Experience building developer platforms or service-oriented architectures.
• Strong system design and architectural thinking skills.
• Proven ability to lead cross-team technical initiatives.

Nice To Haves

• 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 such as 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.

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.
• Assess current API and platform architecture and identify opportunities for standardization.
• Deliver initial platform frameworks and standards, and begin rollout of semantic API patterns.
• Establish an MCP integration approach and support deployment of agent-ready APIs and MCP-enabled services.

Benefits

• Babel Street covers 85–100% of monthly premiums for medical, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance for employees and their families.
• Traditional and Roth 401(k) plans with a competitive match.
• Unlimited flexible leave.
• 12 paid federal holidays.
• Tuition reimbursement for continuing education.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal
• Education Level: No Education Listed