Principal Solutions Architect, API's

Remote; San Francisco (CA); Remote; USD 280,000 - 325,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote role

High compensation potential

Job summary

MapQuest is seeking a strategic Solutions Architect/Technical Seller to enable enterprise teams with API-powered geospatial capabilities. You will validate customer data, build working proofs, and demonstrate how MapQuest outperforms Google Maps, Mapbox and others using real datasets and live demos.

You will craft migration guides, code samples and evaluation frameworks that accelerate the next 100 deals, influencing both technical and business decisions.

Qualifications

• Experience building API-powered proofs of concept with real customer data.
• Ability to translate customer needs into technical requirements and win deals.
• Proven track record in technical selling or solutions architecture for maps/location platforms.

Responsibilities

• Run technical discovery with engineering leaders to understand architecture and workflows.
• Build proofs with real customer addresses, routes and datasets across geocoding, routing, optimization, search, address validation and maps.
• Win bakeoffs against competitors using data-driven demonstrations.
• Create migration guides and code samples to ease switching from incumbents.
• Own the technical win and hand off to implementation.
• Develop reusable demos, migration kits and evaluation frameworks.

Skills

REST APIs

JSON

Postman

curl

Python

JavaScript

real-world data

Tools

Google Maps Platform

Mapbox

ESRI

HERE

TomTom

Job description

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.