Principal Software Development Engineer, Maps

Mapbox is the leading real-time location platform for a new generation of location-aware businesses. Mapbox is the only platform that equips organizations with the full set of tools to power the navigation of people, packages, and vehicles everywhere. More than 4 million registered developers have chosen Mapbox because of the platform’s flexibility, security and privacy compliance. Organizations use Mapbox applications, data, SDKs and APIs to create customized and immersive experiences that delight their customers. 

What We Do

The Maps team oversees services that process and deliver map data, styles, rendering, and interactivity to customers. As a highly multidisciplinary group, we manage the development of mobile SDKs for Android and iOS, 3D mapping experience, and API services built on AWS technologies. Additionally, we own the base map data that forms the foundation for all our deliverables.

Collectively we are revolutionizing in-car experiences with technology to build fast, industry-leading maps and navigation for any vehicle. We’ve launched products such as MapGPT, Mapbox for EV, and we’re enhancing the visual experience of in-vehicle navigation with 3D styling with our new Mapbox Standard through web and mobile SDKs. Mapbox has worked with automotive partners—including BMW, Toyota, and GM—to bring the best aspects of mobile app development into in-vehicle navigation and infotainment.

• Mapbox Blog: Introducing 3D Live Navigation
• Mapbox Blog: Route Notifications Improve Driver Safety
• Mapbox Newsroom: AI Features in New Navigation SDK

What You'll Do

As a Principal Software Development Engineer, you will drive technical excellence, overseeing the architecture and execution of all technical projects within the Maps organization. You will advise the organization leader, providing strategic direction, vision, and the roadmap for the Maps engineering teams, ensuring alignment with the company’s broader goals and objectives.

You will ensure the accuracy, completeness, and timeliness of mapping data by implementing engineering-driven processes for validation and improvement, leveraging innovative data collection methods and best practices. Collaborating with data acquisition and engineering teams, you will enhance data reliability and precision to meet industry standards. You will maintain a deep understanding of competitor offerings, market dynamics, and industry trends, applying engineering expertise to inform data-related decisions and drive continuous improvement in data quality. Staying current with advancements in engineering, data management, and geospatial technologies, you will use market insights to optimize data quality and foster innovation.

You will play a critical role in influencing the AI strategy for the entire company. You will provide technical guidance on how to use AI to improve development efficiency of all Maps teams. You will drive the development of secure, frictionless product experiences while designing and building large-scale systems from the ground up. This highly collaborative, fast-paced environment offers the opportunity to influence how teams leverage data to innovate and support business growth. We are seeking a seasoned leader with deep expertise in distributed systems, a passion for customer experience and experimentation, and the ability to mentor and inspire across the organization.

As AI becomes embedded in modern engineering workflows, we value engineers who can thoughtfully integrate AI into design, development, and decision-making. Our interview process will include discussion of how you use AI in your engineering workflow.

As a Principal Software Development Engineer, you can expect to

• Develop the Roadmap: Set and guide the long-term technical direction and roadmap for the Maps organization, aligning with Mapbox’s business objectives while driving innovation.
• Shape the Vision: Lead and mentor a global team of ~80 engineers through the design, development, and execution of critical engineering components to shape the vision for exceptional customer experience.
• Promote Collaboration: Collaborate across teams to uncover and align complex technical requirements, evaluate design trade-offs, and influence product direction.
• Proactively Innovate: Evaluate, prototype, and roll out new technologies/frameworks to cultivate a culture of innovation that supports and scales for the company’s expansion into new markets.
• Advocate for Customers: Engage directly with customers to understand their needs, travel as needed to meet with them, discuss ideas and solutions, and effectively relay insights back to the team.

What We Believe are Important Traits for This Role

• 15+ years of engineering experience: Extensive hands-on experience showcasing expertise and a strong track record in the field.
• Technical domain knowledge: Extensive experience coding in a variety of languages such as C/C++, Python, Javascript, Typescript. Deep knowledge of different data structures and algorithms, design patterns, memory management, multithreading, and performance optimization for high-efficiency applications.
• AI/ML Proficiency: Demonstrated experience applying machine learning or artificial intelligence techniques to solve complex engineering challenges, especially in areas like data processing, optimization, or feature development.
• Cloud proficiency: Extensive experience with cloud database services, including AWS RDS, Google Cloud Spanner, and Azure SQL, as well as deploying and managing databases in cloud environments.
• Operational excellence: You drive a culture of quality and continuous improvement in your organization. Strong passion for clean code and robust architecture, with a drive to elevate engineering practices and design standards across the team.
• Ownership & execution: Own the technical vision, lead the strategy and guide the team to execute towards building the future of Maps. Experience leading with empathy globally distributed engineering teams.
• Customer focus: You care deeply about your customers and their problems, and you work tirelessly to innovate on their behalf.
• Growth mindset: Have the humility to accept mistakes, learn and grow from them.
• Partnership: Experience collaborating across teams and domains including product, executives, design & key stakeholders to help drive key search decisions that influence the business.
• Strong written and vocal communication skills: You can talk and write about complex ideas concisely to a wide audience. You are able to lead and resolve company-wide technical discussions and are able to collaborate and include input from cross-functional teams (security, devops, data, compliance and product).
• Data informed mindset: You believe in the value of data informed decision making and strive to measure things that are not straight forward but essential. You also have the right instincts to make speedy decisions in the absence of perfect & comprehensive data.
• Experience bringing products to market: You have a proven track record of shipping successful products. You have experience coordinating deadlines, setting pricing, developing a marketing strategy, and enabling support teams.
• High standards for work: You drive a culture of quality on the teams you work with and know how to drive healthy tension between quality and velocity.

Valuable But Not Required Experience

• Prior experience in Maps and/or Navigation. While domain expertise is valuable, at our core, we are individuals who are technical, customer-focused, genuinely curious, adaptive, and eager to transform customer experiences from what they are today.
• Advanced degree (Masters and/or PhD) in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Mathematics, or a related technical field.

What We Value

In addition to our core values, which are not unique to this position and are necessary for Mapbox leaders:

• We value high-performing creative individuals who dig into problems and opportunities.
• We believe in individuals being their whole selves at work. We commit to this through supportive health care, parental leave, flexibility for the things that come up in life, and innovating on how we think about supporting our people.
• We emphasize an environment of teaching and learning to equip employees with the tools needed to be successful in their function and the company.
• We strongly believe in the value of growing a diverse team and encourage people of all backgrounds, genders, ethnicities, abilities, and sexual orientations to apply.

Our annual base compensation for this role ranges from $269,450 - $364,550 for most US locations and 5% to 10% higher for US locations with a higher cost of labor. Job level and actual compensation will be decided based on factors including, but not limited to, individual qualifications objectively assessed during the interview process (including skills and prior relevant experience, potential impact, and scope of role), market demands, and specific work location. Please discuss your specific work location with your recruiter for more information.

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We are committed to a fair and equitable hiring process. We do not discriminate against any protected class.