Staff Software Engineer

Who you are

• 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
• 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

What the job involves

• 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!
• 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

The application process

• Anticipated Posting Close Date*: 09/17/2026

Benefits

• Parental support and beyond: We support our families by offering generous time off for parental leave. And beyond that, we work hard to build a culture that allows for all employees to have the life outside work that they desire year round.
• Health and wellness: Your well-being matters here. Our health plans offer a variety of options, including full medical, dental, and vision coverage, short- and long-term disability insurance, mental health resources, and more.
• Invest in your future: We offer 401(k)/retirement plans, employee stock purchasing plans (ESPP), and reimbursements for learning and development programs — so we can support your ongoing growth and success.
• Keep learning and growing: Helping people go further means nurturing their talent. Through annual reimbursements for employee learning activities, regular hangouts and advice from our Senior Staff, talks from industry leaders, and cultural events — we offer tons of opportunities for people to learn. And we’re always looking to grow as a company, too: we collect employee engagement and experience data annually and leverage our Employee Experience Champion Network to understand employee feedback, so we can keep improving.