{"id":3880186,"url":"https://alion.io/job/ipsgroupinc-principal-engineer-populus-ai-and-elevate-platform","title":"Principal Engineer, Populus.ai and Elevate Platform","company":{"id":680077,"name":"Ipsgroupinc","domain":"ipsgroupinc.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/ipsgroupinc","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"BambooHR","truth_index":null},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Diego, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":125000,"max":160000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":160000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Airflow","optional":false},{"name":"Claude","optional":false},{"name":"Claude Code","optional":false},{"name":"Copilot","optional":false},{"name":"Cursor","optional":false},{"name":"Dependency Injection","optional":false},{"name":"Docker","optional":false},{"name":"ETL/ELT","optional":false},{"name":"FastAPI","optional":false},{"name":"GCP","optional":false},{"name":"GitHub","optional":false},{"name":"IAM","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"Mapbox GL JS","optional":false},{"name":"Pandas","optional":false},{"name":"PostgreSQL","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"React.js","optional":false},{"name":"SOC 2","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false},{"name":"SQLAlchemy","optional":false},{"name":"Terraform","optional":false},{"name":"TypeScript","optional":false},{"name":"CDKTF","optional":true},{"name":"Cloudflare","optional":true},{"name":"Cypress","optional":true},{"name":"Firebase","optional":true},{"name":"Google BigQuery","optional":true},{"name":"JavaScript","optional":true},{"name":"Material UI","optional":true},{"name":"MUI X","optional":true},{"name":"Plotly","optional":true},{"name":"PostGIS","optional":true},{"name":"React Router","optional":true},{"name":"react-map-gl","optional":true},{"name":"Sentry","optional":true},{"name":"Vite","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-11-06T17:49:05Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-06","last_verified_at":"2026-11-09T13:14:42Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":2,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":2},"description":"About IPS Group. Populus.ai and Elevate IPS\nIPS Group, Inc. is a San Diego-based parking technology company, Level 1 PCl DSS and SOC 2 Type II compliant, whose smart meters, software and mobile products serve cities across North America, the UK\nand Ireland.\nIPS Group offers one mobility data platform under two brands: Populus.ai, a stand-alone product for the micromobility market, and Elevate, the same application branded for IPS Group customers. It gives cities one place to manage parking, the curb and shared mobility: parking revenue, occupancy, enforcement, parking sessions, pricing and geographies. The platform runs on Google Cloud and is built\nin Python on PostgreSQWPostGIS.\nJob Description:\nThe Principal Engineer is the technical owner of the platform behind Populus.ai and Elevate, combining two roles in one: the platform's architect and its lead hands-on developer. You will set the architecture,\nwrite production code every week, and lead a small distributed team of offshore engineers and external development partners.\nExpect roughly 60-70% hands-on development and 30-400/0 architecture and technical leadership. This is a senior individual contributor role, not a people-management role: you lead through design, code\nreview and example. As the team grows, this role is expected to evolve into engineering leadership for the Populus.ai and Elevate platform.\nThis is a \"do it all\" position. On any given day you might build a new ETL pipeline and the product around it, design an API for a data product, trace why a metric looks wrong, fix a broken integration, or\nupdate infrastructure as code as the GCP environment evolves.\nEssential Duties and Responsibilities:\nArchitecture\nOwn the end-to-end architecture of the platform, across both the Populus.ai and Elevate brands:\nFastAPl services, the PostgreSQL/PostGlS data model, Airflow data pipelines and GCP infrastructure.\nMake and document key technical decisions.\nSet engineering standards for code quality, code review, testing, security' and data quality.\nOwn the design and enforcement of secure, region-scoped data access so customers only ever see their own data.\nReview and approve work from external development partners at defined checkpoints, including AI and LLM features built into the platform.\nPartner with Product Management on feasibility, scoping, estimates and metric definitions for the roadmap.\nOwn GCP reliability, security posture and cloud cost.\nHands-on development\nBuild new data products end to end: ETL pipelines, backend APIs and supporting front-end changes.\nInvestigate and resolve data questions (\"why does this number look like this?\") by tracing metrics through SQL, pipelines and code.\nBuild new third-party data integrations and troubleshoot breakages in existing ones.\nMaintain infrastructure as code and keep Python dependencies and libraries current.\nServe as the senior escalation point for production incidents.\nTechnical leadership\nLead the offshore engineering team: work planning, design oversight, code review and mentoring.\nKeep platform documentation, runbooks and architecture records current.\nRepresent Populus.ai and Elevate engineering with IPS engineering leadership and, when needed, with customers.\nHelp grow the team, both onshore and offshore: define roles and skill needs, interview and assess candidates, and onboard new engineers onto the platform\nQualifications and Skills:\n10+ years of professional software engineering experience, including 3+ years in a principal, staff or lead role owning system architecture.\nStill hands-on: writing production code as a core part of your job within the last 2-3 years.\nExpert Python, including FastAPI (routers, middleware, dependency injection), SQLAlchemy and Pandas.\nStrong PostgreSQL and analytical SQL; working experience with PostGlS and geospatial data.\nProduction front-end experience with TypeScript and React, including map-based interfaces (Mapbox GL JS or similar).\nProduction experience on Google Cloud Platform: Cloud SQL, IAM and service accounts, Secret Manager, Cloud Storage, monitoring and logging.\nInfrastructure as code with Terraform.\nBuilding and operating ETL pipelines with Apache Airflow Or a similar orchestrator.\nDocker and CVCD with GitHub.\nHands-on experience using AI coding agents, such as Claude Code, Cursor Or GitHub Copilot, in day-to-day development, with sound judgment in reviewing and verifying Al-generated code.\nTrack record of debugging complex data issues end to end, from a wrong number on a dashboard to its root cause.\nExperience leading and mentoring distributed Or offshore engineers across time zones.\nPreferred Qualifications and Skills:\nExperience with CDK for Terraform\nHands-on experience with our front-end libraries: Material UI (MUI X data grid and charts),\nTanStack Query, react-map-gl, Turf.js and Plotly.\nExperience establishing Al-assisted development practices for a team, such as repository\nguidance files (e.g., CLAUDE.md), AI-assisted code review, and quality standards for AI-generated code.\nExperience integrating AI or LLM features into production applications.\nBackground in parking, micromobility, transportation Or smart-city data.\nExperience with BigQuery or Other cloud data warehouses.\nExperience operating SaaS platforms in a PCl DSS Or SOC 2 environment.\nStartup or small-team experience where you owned the whole stack\nTechnology environment\nTechnologies\nPython, FastAPI, SQ[Älchemy, Pandas\nTypeScript, React, Vite, Material UI (MUI\nX), TanStack Query, React Router\nMapbox GL JS, react-map-gl, Mapbox Draw\nand Geocoder, Turf.js\nMUI X Charts, Plotly, D3\nPostgreSQL, PostGIS (Cloud SQL)\nApache Airflow\nGoogle Cloud Platform, Firebase\nCDK for Terraform\nVilest, Cypress, Testing Library\nSentry\nDocker, GitHub\nCloudflare\nEducation/Experienee:\nBachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering or a related field, or equivalent experience\nPhysical Demands. Equipment. and Machinery:\nThe physical demands described here are representative Of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to\nenable individuals with qualified disabilities to perform the essential functions.\nSitting, standing, walking, lifting, and storing supplies and materials throughout the day. Performing work on a desktop computer requires manual dexterity to operate keyboards, calculators and photocopying machine.\nWork Environment:\nThe work environment described here is representative Of those that an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with qualified disabilities to perform the essential functions.\nNote: The above statements are not intended to be an exhaustive list Of all responsibilities, duties and skills required of personnel in this classification. Nothing in the job description restricts IPS Group from the right to change, assign, or reassign duties and responsibilities at any time for any reason. Furthermore, they do not establish a contract for employment as this is an \"AT-Will\" employer. It is the policy of IPS Group not to discriminate against any applicant for employment, or any employee because Of age, color,\nsex, disability, national origin, race, religion, sexual orientation, Or veteran status.\n401 (k)\n401 (k) matching\nDental insurance\nHealth insurance\nLife insurance\nPaid time Off\nVision insurance\nJob Type: Full-time\nSalary range: $125k - $160k/yr.\nWorks with: An offshore Session Manager engineer, plus QA, DevOps, Embedded Firmware and Product Management.\nOn-call: Participates in escalation for Session Manager production incidents.\nAn Equal Opportunity Employer-M/F/D/V","description_format":"text","description_chars":7726,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Dental insurance","Health insurance","Life insurance","Vision insurance"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Transport Infrastructure","Facilities Management"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-11-06T17:49:05Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":86,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.86,"p_room":1,"age_days":2,"expected_fill_days":28,"reasons":["conf:2","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-11-09T06:03:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":160000,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/ipsgroupinc-principal-engineer-populus-ai-and-elevate-platform","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/ipsgroupinc-principal-engineer-populus-ai-and-elevate-platform.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-09T13:29:33Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":17763,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-10T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":680077},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=680077"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fipsgroupinc-principal-engineer-populus-ai-and-elevate-platform"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":2,"usd":0.2},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fipsgroupinc-principal-engineer-populus-ai-and-elevate-platform"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fipsgroupinc-principal-engineer-populus-ai-and-elevate-platform"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/ipsgroupinc-principal-engineer-populus-ai-and-elevate-platform\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fipsgroupinc-principal-engineer-populus-ai-and-elevate-platform"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3880186}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"ipsgroupinc.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3880186},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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