Director of Engineering, AI Takeoff Team

Okta•Chicago, WA

12d•Onsite

About The Position

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. The AI Takeoff Team at Okta is the tip of the spear, creating a rapid, high-bandwidth feedback loop from our customers to product and engineering. We are customer-first by design: working directly with customers to understand real-world problems, rapidly build and validate solutions, and accelerate the capabilities that ultimately become part of the Okta platform. We move at startup speed, operate with intensity, obsess about customer outcomes, and own our numbers — from pipeline generation to sales, adoption and retention. You’ll operate like an engineering leader at a startup within a larger enterprise: moving quickly, staying close to customers, and delivering with urgency while bringing the broader Okta organization with you. In this context, we are seeking a driven, customer-focused engineering leader to accelerate our roadmap delivery. This is a career-defining role for the right leader looking to directly impact the growth trajectory of the industry leader in identity and AI security.

Requirements

8+ years building and shipping identity, security, infrastructure or developer-focused products in a high-growth organization.
Proven engineering leadership and team management experience, including hiring, developing and motivating high-performing teams.
Strong executive communication and influencing skills, with a track record of driving outcomes across organizational boundaries and bringing cross-functional teams together.
Proven experience working directly with enterprise customers and translating customer problems into technical solutions.
Deep identity domain expertise — you know, or can quickly get up to speed on, the latest identity protocols, standards, architectures and patterns.
Experience operating in high-ambiguity, high-velocity environments where priorities evolve quickly and execution matters.
Strong product and customer orientation, with the ability to balance customer urgency, technical quality and long-term scalability.

Nice To Haves

Experience with AI/agentic systems, AI security or emerging identity patterns is a strong plus.

Responsibilities

Work closely with our top customers and AI Forward Deployed Engineering to rapidly translate customer needs into differentiated AI capabilities and deliver them to production.
Partner closely with broader Okta Engineering, Product and Design to ensure capabilities are production-ready and meet Okta standards for security, reliability, scalability and quality.
Build, grow and mentor a small, highly focused team of AI Takeoff engineers operating with high autonomy and urgency.
Serve as a senior technical SME in customer engagements, technical evaluations and complex sales processes.
Lead complex customer escalations with a bias toward rapidly identifying root causes and delivering durable solutions.
Own the technical strategy, architecture, and execution for the AI Takeoff engineering roadmap, balancing customer urgency with long-term scalability and production quality.