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Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # Principal Software Engineer - **Company:** APi Inc - **Location:** McLean, VA, United States - **Experience:** Expert - **Salary:** $209,000.0 - $275,000.0 - **Contract:** Permanent contract - **Skills:** Query Performance, Microsoft Access, Java (Programming Language), Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), Artificial Intelligence, Amazon Web Services, Business Analytics Applications, Data Analysis, User Authentication, Big Data, Software as a Service, Databases, Data Architecture, Data Governance, Data Retention, Data Stores, Data Systems, Relational Databases, Distributed Systems, Data Flow Control, Fraud Prevention and Detection, Graph Database, Python (Programming Language), PostgreSQL, Meta-Data Management, Neo4j, NoSQL, Ruby, Software Engineering, Data Streaming, Data Storage Technologies, Event Driven Architecture, Core Data, Information Technology, Data Lineage, Apache Kafka, Data Management, Api Design, Data Pipelines, Golang - **Published:** November 1, 2026 - **Apply:** https://startup.jobs/principal-software-engineer-data-idme-10636990 ## About the Role * Bachelor's or Graduate degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field (or equivalent practical experience). * 10+ years of hands-on experience in software engineering, distributed systems, and data architecture at a large-scale SaaS, fintech, identity, or platform company. * Demonstrated track record of stepping into complex, brownfield engineering environments, rapidly diagnosing architectural and business challenges, and defining and executing multi-quarter technical transformation roadmaps. * Deep expertise in designing, building, and evolving large-scale data architectures spanning relational databases (e.g., PostgreSQL), distributed event-driven systems, and graph or NoSQL data stores. * Strong proficiency in one or more modern backend programming languages (e.g., Go, Java, Python, Ruby, or Rust) and advanced SQL., * Proven ability to act as a force multiplier across an engineering organization-driving alignment among executives, product leaders, and engineers to turn ambiguous, company-wide problems into actionable execution plans. * Hands-on experience leading large-scale data migrations, decomposing monolithic databases, and establishing API-first data boundaries and data contracts without disrupting mission-critical production traffic. * Deep expertise with both relational database internals/scaling (e.g., PostgreSQL, AlloyDB, CloudSQL) and graph database architectures (e.g., Neo4j, Amazon Neptune, or similar) for relationship-driven identity and fraud use cases. * Experience architecting event-driven data platforms and real-time streaming pipelines (e.g., Google Pub/Sub, Kafka, Dataflow, Temporal) on major cloud providers (GCP or AWS). * Experience designing automated data governance, data retention, and privacy/encryption frameworks in highly regulated environments (e.g., FedRAMP, NIST, SOC2, GDPR). * Fluency with AI-assisted engineering workflows and experience designing data architectures that power AI/ML and analytical platforms. * Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with a natural ability to distill complex architectural trade-offs into clear strategic narratives for both technical and executive audiences. ## Description In this pivotal role, you will serve as the primary technical strategist and hands-on architectural driver for the Data side of ID.me's platform transformation. You will assess existing relational, event-driven, and graph-based data systems, identify critical bottlenecks and strategic opportunities, and chart a clear path from our current state to a resilient, scalable, cloud-native target architecture. Rather than operating in an ivory tower, you will lead from the front-partnering closely with executive leadership, product, security, compliance, and application engineering teams to align technical execution with high-priority business outcomes across identity verification, fraud prevention, analytics, and AI/ML enablement., * Assess & Synthesize Current State: Rapidly build a deep understanding of ID.me's existing data landscape, technical debt, operational bottlenecks, and business priorities across relational databases (PostgreSQL/AlloyDB/CloudSQL), graph systems, event streaming, and core data APIs. * Define & Drive the Data Evolution Plan: Author and own the end-to-end architectural roadmap for ID.me's data ecosystem-defining clear, incremental milestones that safely evolve legacy patterns into modern, scalable, API-first and event-driven data architectures while continuously delivering business value. * Architect Foundational Data Systems: Lead the technical design and implementation of core data platform capabilities, including foundational data APIs, event-driven architectures (Pub/Sub, streaming pipelines), graph data models, encryption/data protection services, and automated data lifecycle/retention systems. * Bridge Business Objectives & Technical Strategy: Partner directly with executive leadership, product management, and domain architects (such as Authentication and Identity) to translate strategic business goals and regulatory mandates into cohesive, future-proof data architectures and data contracts. * Establish Data Modeling & Governance Guardrails: Define organization-wide standards, paved paths, and self-service tooling for logical and physical data modeling (across relational and graph systems), schema hygiene, metadata management, data lineage, and access patterns. * Embed Security, Privacy & Compliance by Design: Partner with Security and Compliance teams to ensure data storage, encryption, retention, and access architectures rigorously satisfy regulatory standards (e.g., FedRAMP, NIST 800-63, GDPR) with built-in auditability. * Hands-On Technical Leadership: Dive into critical codebases, build foundational prototypes, lead architectural reviews, and work side-by-side with engineering teams to unblock complex migrations, optimize database and query performance at scale, and resolve high-severity architectural challenges. * Influence & Elevate Engineering Culture: Mentor Staff and Senior engineers across the organization, evangelize modern data ownership and stewardship practices, and align cross-functional teams around a unified data vision.