Staff Identity Engineer

Okta•Chicago, WA

About The Position

Okta is building the trusted, neutral infrastructure that enables organizations to safely embrace the new era of AI. 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. The Identity Team Okta's internal Identity team secures the foundational trust layer for our modern enterprise. As organizations adopt phishing-resistant MFA, attackers have shifted toward session hijacking and cookie theft. Furthermore, with the rise of autonomous AI workloads, we are extending our platform to protect and govern a growing sprawl of non-human, agentic workflows. Our mission is to ensure every person and machine can safely connect to the right technology at the right time. The Staff Identity Engineer Opportunity As a Staff Engineer at Okta, you will be a technical authority within our internal IAM team, driving the architecture and execution of our identity fabric. You will champion our "Customer Zero" philosophy, partnering with product engineering to deploy Okta's newest features internally before they reach global markets. This role requires a technical leader who acts with ownership and urgency, turning action into traction and ruthlessly simplifying complex problems. You will serve as a mentor, influence architectural decisions, and help determine the future of the platform.

Requirements

4+ years of hands-on experience designing, implementing, and maintaining enterprise-scale IAM solutions.
Deep expertise in managing complex enterprise Okta environments, including hands-on proficiency with Okta Identity Engine (OIE), Directory Integrations, Advanced Policies, Workflows, and Platform APIs.
Advanced expertise in modern authentication and authorization standards (OIDC, OAuth 2.0, SAML 2.0) and phishing-resistant MFA paradigms (FIDO2/WebAuthn, Passkeys).
Proven experience defining identity controls as code using Terraform and Okta Workflows.
Practical experience designing cloud IAM guardrails across multi-cloud environments (AWS, GCP, Azure) and M2M/service-to-service authentication.
Solid background in session lifecycle security, token management/revocation strategies, and continuous access evaluations (CAEP/eSSO) to mitigate session hijacking.
Demonstrated experience mentoring engineers, driving design reviews, and establishing engineering best practices across teams.
Strong orientation toward automation-first design, with practical experience building identity controls that align with enterprise frameworks (SOC 2, ISO 27001, FedRAMP).
U.S. soil status - the employee must be on U.S. soil, which means the 50 states, the District of Columbia, or outlying areas of the United States, as defined in Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 2.101, and be a U.S. person.
U.S. person status - the employee must be either a U.S. citizen as defined in 42 U.S. Code § 9102; a natural person who is a lawful permanent resident as defined in 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(20) or who is a protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3); or a U.S. national (i.e. includes citizens and non-citizens born in outlying possessions such as American Samoa and Swains Island), green card holders, refugees, and asylees. Working on a U.S. visa does NOT qualify as a U.S. person.

Responsibilities

Drive Customer Zero Execution: Act as a key technical bridge between internal stakeholders, the Okta on Okta team, and core Product teams. Lead the early adoption of cutting-edge internal capabilities, providing rigorous technical feedback to mature products before global release.
Architecture & Hands-On Implementation: Own the lifecycle, policy design, adaptive MFA, and federation (SAML, OIDC) for enterprise Okta tenants. Architect and enforce cloud IAM guardrails across AWS, GCP, and Azure, building API-based pipelines to automate complex workflows.
Technical Leadership & Mentorship: Serve as a core technical anchor for the engineering team. Mentor engineers, act as a primary review authority for IAM designs, and set technical standards across the organization.
Operational & Security Governance: Drive automation-first initiatives to eliminate systemic inefficiencies. Partner directly with Security, Audit, and Compliance teams to ensure identity controls natively meet audit requirements (SOC 2, ISO 27001, FedRAMP).
AI Security Integration: Drive the secure adoption of AI technologies by governing AI agents, machine identities, and service-to-service authentication within the enterprise identity layer.
Cross-Functional Partnering & Metrics: Collaborate with cross-functional partners to advance identity security, establish operational KPIs, and translate complex technical milestones into actionable leadership updates.