Okta

Principal Forward Deployed Engineer - Okta for AI Agents

Okta$240K — $330K *
Information Technology
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 10+ years of experience shipping production software with expertise in distributed systems and identity.
  • In-depth knowledge of identity protocols like OAuth 2.0, OIDC, and SAML; contributions to standards are a plus.
  • Strong fluency in agent security frameworks (OWASP, NIST, MITRE) applicable in regulated environments.
  • Expertise in fine-grained authorization methods like ReBAC and ABAC, with knowledge of policy engines.
  • Hands-on experience with AI integration across major platforms and AI-native development practices.
  • Demonstrated record in mentoring and setting technical direction across teams or accounts.
  • Proven credibility with both technical peers and executive leadership, capable of navigating complex account politics.
  • A proactive, founder's mindset focusing on building and scaling functions rather than just managing accounts.

Responsibilities

  • Own the reference architecture, defining and maintaining key patterns for agent identity deployments.
  • Personally lead the most strategic and technically challenging account deployments.
  • Elevate the technical proficiency of the team by reviewing architectures and setting standards.
  • Synthesize deployment patterns into a well-defined roadmap for product and engineering collaboration.
  • Represent Okta at high-level technical discussions with CISO, CIO, and Chief AI Officer stakeholders.
  • Resolve complex technical challenges and navigate political issues to find effective solutions.
  • Establish observability standards for measuring authorization metrics across all customer deployments.
  • Create reusable modules and tools to enhance team efficiency and output.

Benefits

  • Health, dental, and vision insurance.
  • 401(k) plan with company match.
  • Flexible spending account options.
  • Paid leave, including PTO and parental leave.
  • Equity options and performance bonuses.
Full Job Description
The Role

You are the most senior technical field authority for agent identity at Okta. Where a Senior FDE owns the outcome inside one account, you own the patterns that every account and every FDE inherits. You take the hardest and most strategic deployments yourself, set the reference architecture the team builds from, and turn what the field learns into the direction the product takes.

You still write code. You also multiply the people around you, and you are the person product and engineering leadership call when an agent identity problem has no precedent.
Responsibilities
  • Own the reference architecture. Define the canonical agent identity, delegation, audit, and kill-switch patterns that Senior FDEs deploy across the portfolio, and keep them current as the standards and the product move.
  • Lead the hardest accounts. Personally own the most strategic, regulated, or technically novel deployments, the ones where there is no playbook yet.
  • Raise the technical bar. Review other FDEs' architectures, coach senior customer engineers and your own team, and set the standard for what good looks like in the field.
  • Shape the roadmap. Synthesize patterns across every account into a clear point of view, and work directly with product and engineering leadership to prioritize what ships next.
  • Represent Okta as a technical authority. Brief CISO, CIO, and Chief AI Officer audiences, contribute to the standards and frameworks shaping agent identity, and carry the external technical voice.
  • Resolve what others cannot. Step into the hardest technical and political situations across accounts and find the path forward.
  • Set the standard for evals and observability. Define how the team measures authorization latency, scope sprawl, delegation anomalies, audit completeness, and kill-switch verification, so it scales beyond any single customer.
  • Build the team's leverage. Turn recurring field work into reusable modules, internal tooling, and enablement so the whole FDE function moves faster.
Requirements
  • Engineering depth. 10+ years shipping production software, with deep distributed systems and identity experience and a track record of staying hands-on while setting direction.
  • Authority-level identity protocols. OAuth 2.0, OIDC, SAML, SCIM, RFC 8693 token exchange, act claims, CIMD and DCR, DPoP. Contribution to standards or open source is a plus.
  • Deep agent security fluency. OWASP Top 10 for Agentic Applications, NIST AI RMF, MITRE ATLAS, plus MCP, A2A, ISO/IEC 42001, and the EU AI Act, with the judgment to apply them in HIPAA, FedRAMP, and SOC 2 environments.
  • Expert fine-grained authorization. ReBAC and ABAC with policy engines (OPA, Cedar, OpenFGA, or equivalent), and command of the design tradeoffs at scale.
  • Proven AI hands-on. Production integrations across the major agent platforms and MCP, and daily AI-native development.
  • Force multiplier. A record of setting technical direction across multiple teams or accounts, and of mentoring senior engineers.
  • Customer-facing authority. Credible from the IDE to the boardroom, trusted by CISOs and principal engineers alike, and steady when account politics get sharp.
  • High agency, founder's mindset. Applied to building a function, not just an account.

#LI-Remote



The annual base salary range for this position for candidates located in the San Francisco Bay area is between:

$269,000-$369,000 USD

Below is the annual base salary range for candidates located in California (excluding San Francisco Bay Area), Colorado, Illinois, New York and Washington. Your actual base salary will depend on factors such as your skills, qualifications, experience, and work location. In addition, Okta offers equity (where applicable), bonus, and benefits, including health, dental and vision insurance, 401(k), flexible spending account, and paid leave (including PTO and parental leave) in accordance with our applicable plans and policies. To learn more about our Total Rewards program please visit: https://rewards.okta.com/us.

The annual base salary range for this position for candidates located in California (excluding San Francisco Bay Area), Colorado, Illinois, New York, and Washington is between:

$240,000-$330,000 USD

The Okta Experience
  • Supporting Your Well-Being
  • Driving Social Impact
  • Developing Talent and Fostering Connection + Community

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.

About Okta

Okta is a leading provider of identity and access management solutions for enterprises. The company's cloud-based platform enables organizations to securely connect people and technology, providing secure access to applications and data from any device, anywhere, at any time. Okta's solutions are used by thousands of organizations worldwide, including many Fortune 500 companies. The company was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. Okta is committed to providing innovative solutions that help organizations stay secure and productive in today's digital world.
Learn more about Okta
Size
5,342 employees
Market Cap
$10.5 billion
Industry
Net Income
-$266.3 million
Founded
2009
5 Year Trend
+51.9%
Revenue
$835.4 million
NASDAQ

Similar Jobs

More Jobs at Okta

More Information Technology Jobs

Find similar Principal Forward Deployed Engineer - Okta for AI Agents jobs: