Staff Backend Engineer

Secure Every Identity, from AI to Human

Identity is the key to unlocking the potential of AI. Okta secures AI by building the trusted, neutral infrastructure that enables organizations to safely embrace this new era. This work requires a relentless drive to solve complex challenges with real-world stakes. We are looking for builders and owners who operate with speed and urgency and execute with excellence.

This is an opportunity to do career-defining work. We're all in on this mission. If you are too, let's talk. Staff Backend Engineer 

We’re redefining Privileged Access Management (PAM) from the ground up, purpose-built for Cloud, SaaS, Databases, Containers, and any virtualized environment. Our mission is to simplify and secure workforce access with seamless, secure-by-default workflows that adapt dynamically to modern infrastructure. We eliminate standing privileges, enforce least privilege, and embed Zero Trust principles into every access workflow by default.

About the Role

We are seeking a Staff Backend Engineer  to serve as the core technical anchor and senior Individual Contributor (IC) for our newly established engineering pod in India. At the P4 level, your primary sphere of influence will be at the team level —taking ownership of complex, ambiguous problems and defining how to solve them cleanly, securely, and efficiently.

In this role, you will lead by example through hands-on architecture, high-velocity coding, and end-to-end execution. You will drive the implementation of secure database and network device connectors (routers, switches, firewalls) on top of our core Zero Standing Privileges (ZSP) platform. You will work closely with our local Technical Team Lead to elevate the pod’s engineering craft, acting as a technical multiplier for mid-level developers while ensuring tight architectural alignment with our global team.

What You’ll Be Doing

Execution & Technical Impact

• End-to-End Ownership: Consistently design, code, debug, test, monitor, and deploy performant backend services and connector plugins in Go.
• Define the "How": Take well-defined product goals and ambiguous technical challenges, break them down into modular technical designs, and execute them with minimal oversight.
• Component Architecture: Design reliable, scalable components for database scraping and network protocol management (SSH, Telnet, SNMP) using spikes, proof-of-concepts, and telemetry to back up architectural decisions.

Operational Excellence & Engineering Craft

• Guardian Support & Incident Ownership: Actively participate in global on-call rotation. Demonstrate system-level understanding to troubleshoot complex incidents, perform root-cause analysis, and build remediation automation.
• Drive Team Velocity: Identify tech debt, streamline CI/CD pipelines, improve observability/alerting, and establish technical documentation to keep the team moving fast over the long term.
• Risk Management: Proactively spot technical risks, dependency gaps, and performance bottlenecks in your team's projects before they impact delivery.

Team Multiplier & Strategic Alignment

• Technical Mentorship: Elevate the team's craft by conducting thorough, constructive code reviews, establishing best practices in Go, and pairing with P2/P3 engineers.
• Global Collaboration: Partner with global Technical Leads to review major design proposals, manage dependencies, and ensure local execution matches global architecture strategy.

What You’ll Bring to the Role

• 7+ years of software engineering experience , with 3+ years spent building high-scale, cloud-native backend systems.
• Proven Staff-Level (P4) Attributes: Demonstrated ability to independently own large tasks end-to-end, influence technical decisions across a team, and elevate the performance of surrounding engineers.
• Domain & Protocol Expertise: Experience in Privileged Access Management (PAM) , Identity & Access Management (IAM) , or deep networking infrastructure. Familiarity with credential management, asset discovery, or agentless communication patterns.
• Hands-on Go Proficiency: Strong engineering skills in Go (or deep expertise in C++/Rust/Java with a proven record of mastering Go quickly).
• Distributed Systems & Networking: Hands-on experience with networking protocols (SSH, Telnet, TCP/IP), database security, microservices, and asynchronous event-driven systems.
• Cloud & Operational Toolkit: Familiarity with AWS , Kubernetes , Docker , CI/CD automation, and modern telemetry/observability tools.
• Multiplier Mindset: High empathy, humility, and clear communication skills with a focus on sharing knowledge, soliciting feedback, and driving a positive engineering culture.

Extra Credit If You Have:

• Direct experience at domain leaders in security/PAM such as CyberArk , Delinea , or similar IAM space companies.
• Experience working with Graph databases (e.g., ArangoDB) or policy engines (e.g., OPA).
• Contributions to open-source infrastructure projects or technical blogging.

Our Tech Stack

• Language: Go
• Infra: AWS, Serverless, Kubernetes
• Data: Postgres (RDS), ArangoDB (NoSQL)
• DevOps: GitHub Actions, Docker, Terraform, Helm

L1-Hybrid

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The Okta Experience

We are intentional about connection. Our global community, spanning over 20 offices worldwide, is united by a drive to innovate. Your journey begins with an immersive, in-person onboarding experience designed to accelerate your impact and connect you to our mission and team from day one.

Okta is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, ancestry, marital status, age, physical or mental disability, or status as a protected veteran. We also consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and convictions records, consistent with applicable laws.

If reasonable accommodation is needed to complete any part of the job application, interview process, or onboarding please  use this Form to request an accommodation.

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