{"id":3094118,"url":"https://alion.io/job/parsons-principal-innovation-engineer","title":"Principal Innovation Engineer","company":{"id":4937,"name":"Parsons","domain":"parsons.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/parsons","size_band":"5000+","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workday","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":80,"open_postings":336,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.997,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":15,"computed_at":"2026-10-27T05:46:45Z"}},"role":"Industrial Engineering","role_family":"Industrial Engineering","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":["Reston, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":130000,"max_usd":264000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":1961},"experience_years_min":10,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"Platform Engineering","optional":false},{"name":"Anomaly Detection","optional":true},{"name":"Apache Kafka","optional":true},{"name":"Computer Vision","optional":true},{"name":"Consul","optional":true},{"name":"ElasticSearch","optional":true},{"name":"Grafana","optional":true},{"name":"Java","optional":true},{"name":"Nomad","optional":true},{"name":"OpenSearch","optional":true},{"name":"RabbitMQ","optional":true},{"name":"Terraform","optional":true},{"name":"Vault","optional":true}],"status":"closed","first_seen_at":"2026-07-29T00:00:00Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-07-29","last_verified_at":"2026-10-27T20:17:23Z","board_verified":false,"closed_at":"2026-10-27T20:17:23Z","days_open":90,"trust":{"level":"not_scored","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":90},"description":"In a world of possibilities, pursue one with endless opportunities. Imagine Next!At Parsons, you can imagine a career where you thrive, work with exceptional people, and be yourself. Guided by our leadership vision of valuing people, embracing agility, and fostering growth, we cultivate an innovative culture that empowers you to achieve your full potential. Unleash your talent and redefine what’s possible.Job Description:\nParsons is seeking a Principal Innovation Engineer to drive applied innovation for a mission-critical global identity and mobility platform deployed across a wide range of operating environments, from remote and austere locations to high-throughput modern facilities to cloud-forward architectures.\nThis is a hands-on senior engineering role for a technologist who can identify promising technologies, evaluate them against real operational needs, build compelling prototypes and demonstrations, and help transition the best ideas into production-ready capabilities. The right candidate will be comfortable working across software, cloud, edge systems, biometrics/peripherals, networking, resilience engineering, and operational workflows.\nWe are looking for someone who can help ensure our platform remains modern, resilient, and visibly state-of-the-art to customers, stakeholders, and industry peers.\nWhat you will do\nIdentify, evaluate, and prototype new technologies that improve a globally deployed mission-critical platform\n\nBuild working demonstrations, proof-of-concepts, and pilot implementations that can be shown to internal leadership, customers, and external stakeholders\n\nExplore innovation across areas such as:\ndigital identity and verification\n\nbiometrics and contactless capture\n\nedge computing and low-power deployments\n\nresilient/offline-first operations\n\ncloud-native modernization\n\nanalytics and AI-assisted workflows\n\nautomation and operator experience\n\nsecure peripherals and smart devices\n\nAssess emerging commercial and open technologies for fit, maturity, operational value, security implications, and deployability\n\nTranslate innovation ideas into practical architectures that can operate in low-bandwidth environments with intermittent connectivity, power-constraints, environmental challenges, or infrastructure limitations\n\nAssist leadership with transition from prototypes to implementation roadmaps\n\nProduce technical trade studies, architecture recommendations, demonstration plans, and innovation briefings\n\nSupport technical presentations, showcases, and evaluations with customers, sponsors, and partners\n\nShape an innovation pipeline from concept to prototype to fieldable capability\n\nRequired qualifications\n10+ years of experience in systems engineering, software engineering, platform engineering, or applied R&D\n\nDemonstrated experience turning emerging technology concepts into working prototypes or production capabilities\n\nStrong hands-on technical depth in several of the following:\ndistributed software systems\n\ncloud platforms, especially AWS\n\nedge or embedded deployments\n\nnetworking or hybrid connectivity\n\nidentity or security systems\n\nbiometrics or device/peripheral integration\n\nobservability or operational analytics\n\nExperience evaluating technology not only for technical merit, but for operational realism, reliability, security, supportability, and lifecycle fit\n\nExperience working in mission-critical, operational, public sector, regulated, or globally distributed environments\n\nStrong communication skills with the ability to present complex ideas clearly to both engineers and non-technical decision makers\n\nPreferred qualifications\nExperience with identity verification, biometrics, access-control, document technologies, automated gate/peripheral systems, or related domains\n\nExperience designing solutions for remote, austere, power-constrained, or intermittently connected environments\n\nExperience with Java-based distributed systems, microservices, and event-driven architectures\n\nExperience with AWS, Terraform, and hybrid edge/cloud architectures\n\nFamiliarity with technologies such as MongoDB, Elasticsearch/OpenSearch, RabbitMQ/Kafka, Grafana, ELK, HashiCorp Consul, Nomad, and Vault\n\nExperience with AI/ML-enabled analytics, computer vision, anomaly detection, or intelligent automation\n\nExperience engaging with vendors, standards bodies, industry forums, or customer technical demonstrations\n\nWhy join Parsons in this role\nWork on visible, high-impact innovation with real operational relevance\n\nHelp shape the future direction of a globally deployed platform operating in some of the most challenging environments\n\nBuild demonstrable capabilities that influence customer confidence, program growth, and technical direction\n\nOperate at the intersection of edge systems, cloud, resilience, identity, security, and emerging technology\n\nJoin a team where senior engineers can take ideas from concept to showcased capability to operational adoption\n\n Security Clearance Requirement:\nAn active Top Secret SCI security clearance is required for this position.This position is part of our Federal Solutions team.The Federal Solutions segment delivers resources to our US government customers that ensure the success of missions around the globe. Our intelligent employees drive the state of the art as they provide services and solutions in the areas of defense, security, intelligence, infrastructure, and environmental. We promote a culture of excellence and close-knit teams that take pride in delivering, protecting, and sustaining our nation's most critical assets, from Earth to cyberspace. Throughout the company, our people are anticipating what’s next to deliver the solutions our customers need now.Salary Range: $176,900.00 - $332,400.00We value our employees and want our employees to take care of their overall wellbeing, which is why we offer best-in-class benefits such as medical, dental, vision, paid time off, Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), 401(k), life insurance, flexible work schedules, and holidays to fit your busy lifestyle!Parsons is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, veteran status or any other protected status.We truly invest and care about our employee’s wellbeing and provide endless growth opportunities as the sky is the limit, so aim for the stars! Imagine next and join the Parsons quest-APPLY TODAY!Parsons is aware of fraudulent recruitment practices. To learn more about recruitment fraud and how to report it, please refer to https://www.parsons.com/fraudulent-recruitment/.","description_format":"text","description_chars":6656,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":10,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":true,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Flexible schedule","Growth opportunities","Life insurance"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["C4ISR","Civil & Structural Engineering","Homeland Security","Engineering Services"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-22T15:40:51Z"},{"event":"close","at":"2026-10-27T20:17:23Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":null,"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/parsons-principal-innovation-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/parsons-principal-innovation-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-28T01:57:39Z","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":2659,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-29T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"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":4937},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=4937"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fparsons-principal-innovation-engineer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"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%2Fparsons-principal-innovation-engineer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"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%2Fparsons-principal-innovation-engineer"},{"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/parsons-principal-innovation-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fparsons-principal-innovation-engineer"}]}