GoFundMe

Senior Staff Software Engineer, Identity Platform

GoFundMe$233K — $321K *
Information Technology
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 8+ years of software engineering experience at senior or above levels working on platform or infrastructure systems.
  • Deep expertise in identity protocols and standards: OAuth 2.x, OpenID Connect, SAML 2.0, and SCIM.
  • Proven track record of designing and launching identity/auth platforms relied upon by other engineering teams.
  • Experience in architecting systems with federated standards and session/token management.
  • Strong security instincts including threat modeling and risk management in identity systems.
  • Proficiency in relational database design and modeling for identity systems.
  • Demonstrated project leadership from ambiguity to delivery, balancing technical and business contexts.

Responsibilities

  • Define and evolve the identity architecture covering authentication, authorization, and session management.
  • Establish trust boundaries and integration contracts for secure identity services.
  • Make informed decisions about building vs integrating identity solutions with vendors and in-house systems.
  • Design a repeatable, self-service enterprise identity onboarding process.
  • Architect federation and provisioning patterns to support enterprise and nonprofit partnerships.
  • Own the consumer identity lifecycle and related features including confidence scoring and account transitions.
  • Build identity resolution capabilities to enhance personalization and prevent fraud.

Benefits

  • Healthcare, dental, and vision insurance.
  • Life insurance and a 401(k) savings program.
  • Equity options for employees.
  • Opportunities for professional development and mentorship.
  • Hybrid work environment with 3 days in-office requirement.
Full Job Description
Join us! GoFundMe is searching for a Senior Staff Software Engineer for Identity Platform to serve as the technical leader driving the architecture, scalability, and reliability of our identity platform, the foundational layer that every product team, enterprise customer, and internal service builds on. Your work will directly shape how millions of people trust and interact with GoFundMe, and how engineering teams across the company build identity-dependent features with confidence.

As a key technical leader, you will have the opportunity to define how consumer and enterprise identity converge into a unified, secure platform, driving impact for the company, the engineering organization, and the people we serve. Join us if you are excited to own a meaningful systems problem end-to-end while making a direct impact on trust, personalization, and the causes that matter most.

This is a hybrid role that requires 3 days per week at the office, and we are therefore only able to consider candidates who are located or willing to relocate to San Francisco, CA.
The Job
  • Define and evolve the end-to-end identity architecture spanning authentication, authorization, session management, and token lifecycle across consumer and enterprise contexts.
  • Establish trust boundaries, integration contracts, and platform primitives that make the secure path the default path for every team consuming identity services.
  • Make principled build-vs-integrate decisions across vendor (e.g., Descope, Auth0, Okta) and in-house systems, owning the tradeoffs and migration paths.
  • Design repeatable, self-service enterprise identity onboarding (SSO, SCIM provisioning, multi-tenant trust) so that each new partnership does not require bespoke integration.
  • Architect federation and provisioning patterns that support GoFundMe's growing enterprise and nonprofit partnerships.
  • Own the consumer identity lifecycle including account continuity, progressive trust, confidence scoring, and anonymous-to-authenticated transitions.
  • Build identity resolution capabilities (visitor stitching, account linking, confidence-weighted models) that power personalization and fraud prevention.
  • Own the identity platform technical roadmap, prioritizing initiatives based on user impact, enterprise requirements, compliance obligations, and technical feasibility.
  • Set integration standards and publish platform APIs and SDKs that enable product engineering teams to consume identity correctly without absorbing auth complexity.
  • Mentor engineers across the Identity team and the broader Platform Tribe; raise the bar on system design, security thinking, and operational rigor.
  • Contribute to system reliability through on-call participation, incident response leadership, and postmortem-driven improvements to identity infrastructure.
  • Communicate architecture decisions, tradeoffs, and roadmap progress clearly to engineering leadership, product partners, and cross-functional stakeholders.
You
  • 8+ years of software engineering experience, with significant time at senior, staff, or principal levels working on platform or infrastructure systems.
  • Deep, hands-on expertise with identity protocols and standards: OAuth 2.x, OpenID Connect, SAML 2.0, and SCIM.
  • Track record of designing and shipping identity or auth platforms that other engineering teams depend on in production.
  • Experience architecting systems using federation standards, session/token management patterns, and well-defined trust boundaries, with an eye toward minimizing the cost of future change.
  • Strong security instincts: you threat-model as you design, understand credential risk and account takeover patterns, and build systems where the secure path is the easy path.
  • Proficiency in relational database design and data modeling for identity systems, including schema evolution strategies for high-availability environments.
  • Demonstrated ability to lead projects from ambiguity through delivery, balancing technical depth with business context and keeping teams aligned across organizational boundaries.
  • Strong observability and reliability skills: experience with monitoring, alerting, and incident response for mission-critical identity infrastructure.
Preferred
  • Hands-on experience with commercial identity platforms (Descope, Auth0/Okta, Ping, or comparable) in production, including migration between providers.
  • Experience spanning both enterprise and consumer identity contexts, such as at fintech, SaaS, payments, or identity-forward companies.
  • Familiarity with advanced authorization models: RBAC, ABAC, ReBAC, or policy engines such as OPA/Cedar.
  • Experience with compliance and audit requirements relevant to identity systems (SOC 2, PCI DSS, GDPR, CCPA) and data residency considerations.
  • Practical experience deploying and operating identity services on cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure) at scale.
  • Contributions to identity standards bodies, open-source identity projects, or published thought leadership in the IAM space.

The annual U.S. salary range for this full-time position is $233,500 - $321,200. The company also offers equity and other benefits to employees, including healthcare, dental, vision, life insurance and 401(k) saving program. In addition to this wage, there are geolocation differentials that will increase pay depending on the work location. Additionally pay may vary depending on other factors including skills, experience, education, or training. Your recruiter can share more about the specific total compensation package based on your location during the hiring process.

If you require a reasonable accommodation to complete a job application or a job interview or to otherwise participate in the hiring process, please contact us at [redacted].

Global Data Privacy Notice for Job Candidates and Applicants:

Depending on your location, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or certain US privacy laws may regulate the way we manage the data of job applicants. Our full notice outlining how data will be processed as part of the application procedure for applicable locations is available here. By submitting your application, you are agreeing to our use and processing of your data as required.

About GoFundMe

GoFundMe is a crowdfunding platform that allows people to raise money for various causes and projects. The company was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Redwood City, California. GoFundMe has helped people raise over $9 billion for various causes, including medical expenses, education, and disaster relief. The platform is easy to use and allows users to create and share their campaigns on social media. GoFundMe charges a 2.9% processing fee for each donation, plus a $0.30 transaction fee. The company has been recognized for its impact on charitable giving and has won numerous awards for its platform and services.
Learn more about GoFundMe
Size
200 employees
Industry
Founded
2008

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