Staff Software Development Engineer - Credentials

ID.me • Mountain View, CA

2d • $217,565 - $260,000 • Onsite

About The Position

ID.me is seeking a Staff Software Development Engineer – Credential API to design and build the foundation of our credentialing platform — the API that issues, retrieves, and manages validated credential bundles (e.g., verified passport, driver’s license, validated domain, verified face) for both people and organizations. As a key individual contributor, you’ll architect and implement the services that underpin ID.me’s next-generation identity trust layer. You’ll work across identity, verification, and platform teams to deliver a secure, scalable, and high-performance API that enables the interoperability and integrity of digital credentials used by millions of users and trusted partners. This position will be based full-time in our Mountain View, CA office.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
• 8+ years of professional experience developing backend services and APIs in production environments.
• 8+ years experience in at least one backend language ( Python, Go, or Java ) and with modern frameworks.

Nice To Haves

• Demonstrated expertise in building and operating public-facing REST or GraphQL APIs at scale.
• Deep experience with relational databases (e.g., PostgreSQL) and NoSQL or graph data stores .
• Solid understanding of distributed systems concepts , caching, asynchronous processing, and cloud-native patterns.
• Experience implementing authentication and authorization (OAuth2, OIDC, JWT, or custom schemes).
• Proven ability to design, document, and evolve APIs used by multiple internal and external consumers.
• Familiarity with identity and credential verification systems , including data validation, proofing, or trust scoring.
• Experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure), including containerization and deployment pipelines.
• Knowledge of event-driven architectures (Kafka, SNS/SQS) and patterns for decoupled service communication.
• Exposure to digital credential and identity standards (e.g., Verifiable Credentials, Decentralized Identifiers, W3C DID specs).
• Experience working with API gateway technologies (e.g., Kong, Apigee, AWS API Gateway).
• Strong debugging and performance optimization skills in complex production systems.
• Contributions to open-source backend or identity-related projects are a plus.
• Experience in regulated or high-assurance domains (government, financial, or healthcare systems) is advantageous.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement the Credential API and its core services that issue, fetch, and manage credential attribute bundles for entities such as Person or Organization.
• Build RESTful and GraphQL endpoints that meet strict standards for reliability, latency, and security, and integrate seamlessly with both internal and external systems.
• Develop robust data models and storage patterns to represent credential provenance and relationships across relational and graph databases.
• Implement credential lifecycle flows — including creation, validation, renewal, and revocation — integrated with ID.me’s identity verification and attribute validation systems (AVS, face, domain validation, etc.).
• Ensure the security and privacy of credential data through strong authentication, authorization, encryption, and audit practices.
• Collaborate closely with Platform, Identity, Security, and Partner Engineering teams to deliver end-to-end features and integrations.
• Write high-quality, maintainable, and well-tested code , including automated tests and observability instrumentation.
• Contribute to system design discussions , code reviews, and technical documentation to drive clarity and alignment across teams.
• Continuously optimize performance , scalability, and reliability for credential services in production environments.
• Stay current on emerging identity and credentialing standards (e.g., Verifiable Credentials, Decentralized Identifiers, OIDC extensions) and bring new ideas into the product.

Benefits

• ID.me offers comprehensive medical, dental, vision, health savings account, flexible spending accounts (medical, limited purpose, dependent care, commuter benefit accounts), basic and voluntary life and AD&D insurance, 401(k) with company match, parental leave, ability to participate in unlimited paid time off subject to the terms and conditions of the PTO policy, including 8 company wide holidays, short and long-term disability insurance, accident and critical illness insurance, referral bonus policy, employee assistance program, pet insurance, travel assistant program, wellbeing and childcare discounts, benefit advocates, and a learning and development benefit.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Number of Employees: 1,001-5,000 employees