Fastly

Staff Software Engineer - Customer Identity & Access Management (CIAM)

Fastly$211K — $253K *
Information Technology
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 7+ years of experience in design and operation of authentication and authorization systems.
  • Strong knowledge of identity and access standards like OIDC, OAuth, SAML.
  • Experience with service-to-service authentication in distributed systems.
  • Expertise in software architecture focused on scalability, reliability, and security.
  • Ability to provide technical leadership across teams via collaboration.
  • Excellent communication skills for technical documentation and stakeholder alignment.

Responsibilities

  • Design and establish secure, scalable identity services for authentication and authorization.
  • Lead complex technical projects from design to production while balancing architecture and delivery.
  • Act as a technical lead, guiding architecture and supporting design review processes.
  • Collaborate with engineering, product, and security teams to prioritize investments and identify risks.
  • Simplify complex technical issues into actionable solutions maintaining engineering standards.
  • Promote best practices for identity management and engineering across the CIAM platform.
  • Enhance system reliability and security through sound architectural decisions and operational practices.
  • Mentor fellow engineers through collaborative problem-solving and technical guidance.

Benefits

  • Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance from day one.
  • Support for family planning and mental health, including Employee Assistance Program.
  • Flexible vacation policy and up to 18 days of paid sick leave.
  • 401(k) plan with company matching to support retirement savings.
  • Employee Stock Purchase Program for shared financial growth.
  • 11 paid local holidays and 12 paid company wellness days annually.
Full Job Description
Posting Open Date: 08/19/2026

Anticipated Posting Close Date*: 09/17/2026

*Job posting may close early due to the volume of applicants.

Staff Software Engineer - Customer Identity Access Management (CIAM)

Join our dynamic Customer Identity Access Management (CIAM) team as a Staff Software Engineer and play a pivotal role in building cutting-edge solutions that centralize and simplify how organizations manage user identities and profile data. Our CIAM team is committed to empowering customers with control over user access by providing advanced access control mechanisms, innovative authentication methods, progressive profiling, and a unified identity experience.

We are looking for passionate, highly skilled software engineers to join our team and be an integral part of our mission. If you're eager to make a significant impact and contribute to the growth of a thriving CIAM ecosystem, we would love to have you on board. Let's build something remarkable together!

What You'll Do
  • Design and build secure, scalable identity services supporting authentication, authorization, identity lifecycle, and related platform capabilities.
  • Lead implementation of complex technical initiatives from design through production, balancing long-term architecture with practical delivery.
  • Serve as the technical lead for one or more core areas of the CIAM platform, guiding architecture, reviewing designs, and helping teams make sound technical decisions.
  • Partner with engineering, product, and security to shape implementation plans, prioritize technical investments, and identify risks early.
  • Break down ambiguous technical problems into practical, incremental solutions while maintaining a high bar for engineering quality.
  • Champion modern, standards-based identity patterns and help teams adopt engineering best practices across the CIAM platform.
  • Improve the reliability, security, and maintainability of identity-related services through strong architectural decisions and operational rigor.
  • Mentor engineers within the CIAM organization through design reviews, technical guidance, and collaborative problem solving.
  • Contribute to an inclusive engineering culture grounded in curiosity, pragmatism, and continuous improvement.
  • Participate in on-call support rotation as needed.

What We're Looking For
  • Significant experience designing and operating authentication and authorization systems in production environments. Staff engineers at Fastly typically have 7+ years of relevant experience.
  • Deep understanding of identity and access standards and technologies such as OIDC, OAuth, SAML, SCIM, JWT, and SSO.
  • Experience with service-to-service authentication and secure communication patterns in distributed systems.
  • Strong background in software architecture and system design, especially in areas of scalability, performance, reliability, and security.
  • Demonstrated ability to provide technical leadership across multiple teams through architectural guidance, delivery of complex initiatives, and collaborative influence.
  • Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to produce clear technical documentation and align diverse stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications/Bonus Points
  • Experience with Go, Java, or Ruby
  • Experience with Keycloak
  • Production experience implementing Role and Attribute-based Access control systems
  • Experience designing secure identity systems with strong consideration for authentication threats, authorization models, and operational resilience.

Work Hours:

This position will require you to be available during core business hours and occasional nights and weekends as necessary to support on-call coverage.

Work Location(s) & Travel Requirements

The preferred locations for this position are:
  • San Francisco, CA
  • Denver, CO
  • New York, NY

Fastly currently embraces a largely hybrid model for most roles which allows employees flexibility to split their time between the office and home.

There is a strong preference for Hybrid near a local office. However, we may be willing to consider highly qualified remote candidates within the US.

This position may require travel quarterly to align on technical designs and direction

Salary:

The estimated salary range for this position is $211,370 to $253,644.

Starting salary may vary based on permissible, non-discriminatory factors such as experience, skills, qualifications, and location.

This role may be eligible to participate in Fastly's equity and discretionary bonus programs.

Benefits:

We care about you. Fastly works hard to create a positive environment for our employees, and we think your life outside of work is important too. We support our teams with great benefits that start on the first day of your employment with Fastly. Curious about our offerings?

We offer a comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, and vision insurance. Family planning, mental health support along with Employee Assistance Program, Insurance (Life, Disability, and Accident), a Flexible Vacation policy and up to 18 days of accrued paid sick leave are there to help support our employees. We also offer 401(k) (including company match) and an Employee Stock Purchase Program. For 2026, we offer 11 paid local holidays, 12 paid company wellness days.

About Fastly

Fastly is an American cloud computing services provider. Fastly's edge cloud platform enables customers to create great digital experiences quickly, securely, and reliably by processing, serving, and securing our customers' applications as close to their end-users as possible — at the edge of the internet. Fastly's customers include many of the world's most prominent companies, including Vimeo, Pinterest, The New York Times, and GitHub. Fastly was founded in 2011 by Artur Bergman, Simon Wistow, and Gil Penchina. The company went public on May 15, 2019, and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol 'FSLY'.
Learn more about Fastly
Size
976 employees
Market Cap
$936.2 million
Industry
Net Income
-$95.9 million
Founded
2011
Revenue
$290.8 million
NASDAQ

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