5+ years of software engineering experience, with 2+ years in Identity or Security Products.
Expert proficiency in Go and understanding of gRPC microservices architecture.
Deep knowledge of identity protocols (OIDC, OAuth2, SAML) and access models (RBAC, ABAC, PBAC).
Proven experience in building distributed systems managing consensus, replication, and partitioning.
Working experience with Kubernetes, SQL (MySQL), and Infrastructure as Code (Terraform).
Ability to distill complex legacy logic into maintainable abstractions.
Strong communication skills to convey technical strategies to senior management.
Responsibilities
Design and develop high-availability authentication and authorization services in Go.
Build IAM foundations for cloud-native AI/ML platforms and secure token exchanges.
Lead implementation of OIDC and SAML for enterprise SSO integrations.
Evolve the Policy Engine for advanced permissions and dynamic access conditions.
Design scalable multi-tenant data models for complex hierarchy management.
Ensure service reliability through management of Kubernetes deployments and data migrations.
Identify and rectify complex security vulnerabilities in authentication flows.
Mentor junior engineers and conduct thorough code reviews.
Benefits
Remote work flexibility.
Opportunity to influence AI/ML integration into IAM services.
Engagement with high-scale distributed systems and cloud-native architectures.
Full Job Description
We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer (IC3) to join our Customer Trust & Engineering team working on Identity and Access Management. IAM is the bedrock of trust at DigitalOcean; our services sit in the critical path of every request, authorizing billions of transactions per second with single-digit millisecond latency.
In this role, you won't just maintain existing systems-you will architect the next generation of our Identity platform. You will be instrumental in supporting our AI initiatives, building seamless SSO integrations for global partners, and evolving our policy engine to support complex, agentic workflows. If you are passionate about distributed systems, security-first engineering, and building at hyperscale, this is the team for you. What You'll Do
Architect for Scale: Design and develop high-availability, low-latency authentication and authorization services in Go that scale to handle massive load spikes across global regions.
Drive Next-Gen Innovation: Build the IAM foundations for emerging cloud-native AI/ML platforms, designing secure token exchange patterns and identity context injection for agentic AI workflows.
Modernize Identity: Lead the implementation of OIDC and SAML integrations, enabling seamless federated Single Sign-On (SSO) for enterprise customers and strategic global partners.
Solve Complex AuthZ: Evolve our Policy Engine (using industry standards like Rego/OPA) to support advanced resource-level permissions, dynamic scoping, and network-aware access conditions.
Evolve Identity Models: Design and scale robust, multi-tenant data models to manage complex hierarchical structures (users, teams, organizations, and resource boundaries) that map to enterprise customer needs.
Operational Excellence: Take ownership of service reliability, from fine-tuning Kubernetes deployments to migrating legacy data pipelines to modern eventing architectures.
Security First: Proactively identify and remediate complex security vulnerabilities, ensuring our auth flows are resilient against credential stuffing, session hijacking, and configuration theft.
Mentor & Lead: Act as a technical lead for major workstreams, conducting deep code reviews and mentoring junior engineers in distributed systems best practices.
What You'll Add to DigitalOcean
Experience: 5+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 2+ years focused on Identity (AuthN/AuthZ), Security Products, or high-scale Distributed Systems.
Language Expert: Expert-level proficiency in Go and a strong understanding of gRPC microservices architecture.
Identity Specialist: Deep knowledge of identity protocols (OIDC, OAuth2, SAML) and access control models (RBAC, ABAC, PBAC).
Distributed Systems Guru: Proven ability to build systems that handle consensus, replication, and partitioning at cloud scale.
Cloud Native: Working experience with container orchestration (Kubernetes), SQL (MySQL), and Infrastructure as Code (Terraform).
Problem Solver: A track record of "unwinding" complex legacy logic into clean, maintainable abstractions.
Communication: Ability to communicate technical strategy to senior leadership and collaborate across teams (Inference, Billing, DOKS).
Nice to Have
Experience with Open Policy Agent (OPA) and Rego.
Familiarity with Cloud-native deployment strategies (Canary/Blue-Green) via kubernetes.
Compensation Range:
$140,800 - $176,000
*This is a remote role
#LI-Remote
Application Limit: You may apply to a maximum of 3 positions within any 180-day period. This policy promotes better role-candidate matching and encourages thoughtful applications where your qualifications align most strongly.
