Staff Software Engineer (Hybrid, Denver Metro Preferred)

FusionAuth•Denver, CO

2d•$190,000 - $230,000•Hybrid

About The Position

FusionAuth is hiring a Staff Software Engineer to operate as a senior hands-on engineer. This is a deeply hands-on technical role: you solve the most complex problems, and the rest of the job (review, technical design, mentorship) grows out of that credibility rather than sitting apart from it. The timing matters. AI agents need their own authentication and authorization. Passkeys are displacing passwords. Delegated token exchange is rewriting how services trust each other. FusionAuth ships into self-hosted, on-premise, and dedicated cloud environments across thousands of customer-managed deployments, so every decision here carries real weight. These problems are hard and consequential, and as a Staff engineer you will be one of the people solving them directly in the code, not just reviewing them after the fact. You will also carry protocol expertise (OAuth 2.x, OpenID Connect, SAML, JWT) and engage directly with enterprise customers on implementation guidance and integration architecture. You drive impact by pairing sound technical judgment with cross-functional consensus-building - guiding senior engineers toward staff-level execution, aligning teams around complex architectural decisions, and sharing expertise through designs, code reviews, and technical discussions.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent demonstrable technical depth.
10+ years of professional software engineering, with demonstrated staff-level technical competency.
Currently writes and ships production code. This role stays in the code, so recent, active engineering is required.
Production-grade experience with OAuth 2.x, OIDC, and SAML, including the ability to identify subtle misimplementations, guide protocol-correct designs, and handle federation and security edge cases.
Strong Java skills, including a working understanding of the JVM. FusionAuth's core application is Java-based.
Experience tuning PostgreSQL (or a comparable relational database) at scale.
Experience designing or supporting software deployed across self-hosted, or dedicated cloud environments, including backward compatibility and upgrade paths.
Uses AI development tools (for example, Claude Code or Codex) as part of everyday workflow, and has experience helping a team adopt AI-augmented development practices. FusionAuth is actively standardizing on AI tooling across the SDLC, and this role helps drive that adoption.
Appreciates first-principles thinking, but knows when to stop theorizing and start building.
FusionAuth is headquartered in the Denver metro area, and we value the collaboration that comes from working together in person. We strongly prefer candidates local to the Denver metro who can be onsite 1-2 days per week. We are open to candidates in other locations who are willing to travel to our office 2 -3 times per year.
Applicants must be authorized to work for any employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or assume sponsorship of an employment Visa at this time.

Nice To Haves

Direct experience building or working within a CIAM product or identity platform.
Familiarity with emerging identity protocols and standards (FIDO2/passkeys, DPoP, token binding, OAuth 2.x drafts).
Experience diagnosing container and pod issues and reasoning about K8s networking, storage, and resource limits in production.
Familiarity with compliance frameworks (SOC 2, FedRAMP, GDPR) and their impact on architectural decisions.
History of contributing to open-source identity or security projects, or publishing technical writing on identity topics.
A track record of ramping early-career engineers to productive, independent contributors.

Responsibilities

Tackle the most demanding platform and feature initiatives within the FusionAuth core product. Deliver resilient, secure, and thoroughly tested production code to resolve complex, open-ended technical challenges. Lead major end-to-end projects, collaborating with peers to manage everything from scoping and estimation to technical design and general availability.
Write Technical Design Documents (TDDs) for key initiatives, advocating clear technical directions while remaining receptive to feedback. Provide strategic guidance to senior engineers on architectural plans to ensure alignment with FusionAuth's standards for quality, security, reliability and scalability.
Elevate code and architectural review standards across the organization, integrating continuous learnings into the AI software development lifecycle. Define and enforce standards for architectural integrity, and testing quality, while advancing test automation and coverage to satisfy enterprise-grade reliability requirements.
Design advanced OAuth 2.x, OIDC, and SAML flows for enterprise deployments. Handle security edge cases and federation patterns, and guide protocol-correct implementation across the product.
Engage directly with enterprise customers and prospects on implementation guidance, integration architecture, and troubleshooting complex auth scenarios.
Factor FusionAuth's diverse deployment targets into every decision. Protect backward compatibility, API versioning, and upgrade paths across thousands of customer-managed environments, and apply security and compliance judgment (OWASP, data residency, encryption, audit requirements like GDPR) to how you build.
Mentor senior engineers toward Staff-level thinking and autonomy, and ramp junior engineers through pairing and review. Build consensus on hard technical calls across teams, and communicate technical strategy to stakeholders with business context, representing engineering with Product, Sales Engineering, and Support.
Evaluate and implement AI-driven solutions and organizational context across the engineering team, embedding AI-augmented development and automated testing into everyday practices as FusionAuth modernizes its software development lifecycle.

Benefits

Comprehensive health insurance including medical, dental, and vision coverage, with the company covering the majority of your medical premiums to keep your costs low
Fully employer-paid High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) option paired with a Health Savings Account (HSA), including employer contributions
Basic life insurance and short- and long-term disability coverage fully paid by the company for essential financial protection
Voluntary life insurance options to provide additional financial protection for you and your loved ones
Healthcare and Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) to save pre-tax dollars on eligible expenses
401(k) plan with company match to help you save for retirement
Generous paid time off (PTO) plus paid company holidays to support work-life balance
Employee Assistance Program (EAP) offering confidential counseling and support services
Professional growth and development opportunities to boost your career journey
Eligibility for performance-based bonuses or variable compensation tied to individual, team, or company results