Staff Software Engineer - Platform App Services

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.

As a Staff Software Engineer, you will serve as a technical leader and architect for our backend systems. You will be responsible for defining the technical vision of our platform, mentoring senior engineers, and solving complex challenges related to scalability and reliability. Your role is to be a force multiplier, ensuring that our engineering practices and architectures enable teams to deliver high-quality software at a global scale.

What You’ll Do

• Technical Strategy: Define and drive the long-term technical roadmap for Golang-based backend services, ensuring alignment with broader business objectives and platform initiatives.

• Architectural Leadership: Lead the design and evolution of Postgres-backed distributed systems, prioritizing high performance, multi-region reliability, and complex data workflows (CDC).

• Complexity Reduction: Identify systemic redundancies across teams; lead efforts to consolidate tools and services to simplify the developer experience and reduce organizational complexity.

• Operational Excellence: Set the standard for observability and operational health. You will influence the strategy for platform availability and lead initiatives to improve system resilience.

• Cross-Functional Influence: Partner with Product, Infrastructure, and Security leadership to negotiate technical trade-offs and ensure the platform scales efficiently.

• Sponsorship & Mentorship: Actively sponsor the growth of Senior and Mid-level engineers through deep technical guidance, rigorous code reviews, and career-shaping feedback.

• Culture of Excellence: Champion best practices in software design, CI/CD, and automation, fostering a culture of technical rigor and continuous improvement.
  
  

What You’ll Bring

• Professional Depth: 8+ years of software engineering experience, with a track record of leading large-scale initiatives from architectural design to production.

• Golang Mastery: Expert proficiency in Golang and a deep understanding of distributed systems design, concurrency patterns, and performance optimization.

• Data Architecture: Significant experience with Postgres, including advanced schema design, query optimization at scale, and managing high-volume data pipelines.

• Systemic Thinking: Proven ability to design resilient, high-availability services that operate under heavy global load.

• Influence Without Authority: Exceptional ability to drive consensus across multiple engineering teams and influence technical direction through collaboration.

• Communication: Excellence in distilling complex technical concepts into clear, actionable strategies for both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

• Proactive Problem Solving: A history of identifying and resolving ambiguous, high-impact technical debt and architectural bottlenecks.
  
  

Preferred Qualifications

• Distributed Systems: Experience with modern microservices communication patterns and service-oriented architectures.

• Polyglot Awareness: Exposure to other languages such as TypeScript, JavaScript, or Node.js in a service-oriented environment.

• Cloud Infrastructure: Familiarity with container orchestration (e.g., Kubernetes) and deploying/operating services within major cloud providers (AWS or Azure).

• Infrastructure as Code: Experience or familiarity with automating infrastructure deployment and management.
  
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Below is the annual salary range for candidates located in Canada. Your actual salary will depend on factors such as your skills, qualifications, and experience. In addition, Okta offers equity (where applicable), bonus, and benefits, including health, dental, and vision insurance, RRSP with a match, healthcare spending, telemedicine, and paid leave (including PTO and parental leave) in accordance with our applicable plans and policies. To learn more about our Total Rewards program, please visit: https://rewards.okta.com/can.

The Okta Experience

• Supporting Your Well-Being
• Driving Social Impact
• Developing Talent and Fostering Connection + Community

We are intentional about connection. Our global community, spanning over 20 offices worldwide, is united by a drive to innovate. Your journey begins with an immersive, in-person onboarding experience designed to accelerate your impact and connect you to our mission and team from day one.

Okta is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, ancestry, marital status, age, physical or mental disability, or status as a protected veteran. We also consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and convictions records, consistent with applicable laws.

If reasonable accommodation is needed to complete any part of the job application, interview process, or onboarding please use this Form to request an accommodation.

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