Principal Solutions Architect, API's

About the role

MapQuest APIs power geocoding, routing, search and maps for companies that move things, find things and locate people at scale. Enterprise customers like Epic, Walgreens, and Hertz come to us to cut their mapping bill and keep the data they pay for. Your job is to prove it works with their data before they sign.

This is not a demo role. You will build the technical selling function for MapQuest APIs from the ground up, supporting two enterprise sellers, and your fingerprints will be on every deal we win.

Please note this role is a remote role, and can work in the following states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington.

What you will do:

• Run technical discovery with engineering leaders: their architecture, their workflows, what they need to see to say yes.
• Build proofs with real customer addresses, routes and datasets across geocoding, routing, optimization, search, address validation and maps. Not slideware.
• Win bakeoffs against Google Maps, Mapbox and others, with data rather than assertions.
• Make switching easy: migration guides, code samples and tools that lower the cost of leaving an incumbent.
• Own the technical win through customer sign-off and a clean handoff to implementation.
• Build what gets reused: demos, migration kits and evaluation frameworks that make the next 100 deals easier than the first.

Who you are:

• Roughly 30% solutions architect, 30% developer, 25% technical seller, 15% geospatial detective.
• You build fast. REST APIs, JSON, Postman or curl, Python or JavaScript, messy real-world data. You can turn an API into a working proof in hours.
• You investigate. When a geocode lands in the wrong place, you dig in rather than explain it away.
• You have range. Deep with a developer in the morning, clear with a VP in the afternoon.
• You care whether it closes. You know what has to happen technically for a deal to move, and you make it happen.
• You default to action. "Send me the data. I'll test it."
• Experience with Google Maps Platform, Mapbox, ESRI, HERE, TomTom or similar location platforms a strong plus.

Why this role:

• First hire in the function, with the mandate and runway to define how it works.
• Compensation tied directly to API revenue, with upside above plan.
• A brand nearly everyone knows, inside a B2B business that is still early. Small team, direct access, fast decisions.
• On-target earnings of $280,000 to $325,000, base plus variable tied to API sales performance, with accelerators above plan.