Engineering Team Lead, Identity & Access Management (IAM)

Nesto Inc.; Canada; Hybrid; CAD 140,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

The A-Team

Mortgage program

Vacation policy

Health & Wellness benefits

Remote-First

Job summary

nesto is seeking an Engineering Team Lead for the IAM team to guide identity, authentication, and authorization initiatives. You will oversee people, delivery, and day-to-day health while partnering with engineers and leaders to keep the platform advancing.

You'll stay close to technical work to guide decisions and balance risks, ensuring secure, scalable access control across products at nesto. This role is remote-first within Canada and emphasizes mentorship and strategic oversight.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of people management experience including coaching, performance, hiring, and career growth.
• Strong software engineering background to guide security-sensitive systems.
• Experience leading complex work across multiple engineering teams with aligned priorities and ownership.
• Strong delivery leadership with ability to scope, sequence, and reduce risk.
• Sound judgment across identity, authentication, authorization, security, and platform architecture.
• Experience building or operating shared platforms used by other teams.
• Ability to communicate technical decisions, risks, and trade-offs clearly with technical and non-technical partners.
• Collaborative leadership style: know when to decide, facilitate, or delegate to engineers.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow a team of engineers through hiring, coaching, and performance management.
• Create an environment with clear expectations and direct feedback for career growth.
• Own delivery cadence, keeping priorities, scope, risks, dependencies, and timelines visible.
• Partner with Product Manager and Staff Engineer to shape IAM strategy and roadmap.
• Guide technical decisions across identity, authentication, and authorization while leveraging engineers.
• Lead adoption of shared IAM capabilities across engineering teams.
• Coordinate with teams building IAM capabilities and manage upstream/downstream dependencies.
• Ensure services are secure, reliable, observable, and compliant with policies.
• Represent IAM in cross-functional discussions, translating trade-offs and risks for audiences.

Skills

People management

Software engineering

Delivery leadership

Communication

Platform architecture

Identity security

Job description

Join nesto — proudly named Canadian Rocketship 2025.* A Deloitte Fast 50 company evolving alongside Canada’s top tech innovators and disrupting a 2.1 Trillion-dollar mortgage industry at light speed by building the mortgage ecosystem of the future.

BUILD lending technology with the best developers, AI engineers, and mortgage experts in the country. Work on a modern tech stack and a development framework designed to unlock your full potential and accelerate your career.

• Hypergrowth: Deloitte Fast 50 — 3 years in a row.
• Tech community credibility: TechTO Canadian Rocketship 2025*.
• Industry leadership: CLA Lending Company of the Year — 4 consecutive years.
• Trusted technology: Powering major financial institutions across Canada.
• An entrepreneurial culture built on trust, speed, uncomfortable ambition, and a relentless obsession with our clients.

Who are you

Builders. Problem-solvers. Curious minds. People who move fast, embrace innovation, and believe we’re stronger together. If you trust your skills and want to build real technology that reshapes an entire industry, join us now.

About the team

The IAM team owns identity, authentication, and authorization at nesto. We’re part of the core platform: the teams building products across nesto are our clients, and our job is to give them a foundation for identity and access they can build on with confidence.

Our work spans identity providers, authentication flows, authorization models, policy enforcement, and the tools product teams use to manage access securely. We establish shared standards and supported patterns so access control is consistent, scalable, and easier for engineering teams to adopt.

Our work touches nearly every product at nesto and carries real security and compliance responsibility. We move quickly, but we don’t cut corners.

We’re still a relatively new team at nesto, which means a lot of how we operate, and how the rest of the org adopts what we build, is still being shaped. Whoever leads this team will have real say in that.

About the role

We’re looking for an Engineering Team Lead to lead the IAM team and help shape how identity and access capabilities evolve across nesto. You’ll be accountable for the team’s people, delivery, and day-to-day health, including hiring, coaching, performance, and career development.

You’ll stay close enough to the technical work to guide decisions, identify risks, and help the team navigate trade-offs. You won’t need to be the primary architect or write code regularly. You’ll work closely with engineers and technical leaders to make sound decisions and keep the platform moving forward.

IAM work crosses product and team boundaries. You’ll coordinate dependencies, clarify ownership, manage delivery risks, and keep teams aligned on scope, sequencing, and expectations. You’ll partner closely with a Product Manager and Staff Engineer and report to the Engineering Manager.

What you’ll be doing

• Lead and grow a team of engineers through hiring, regular 1:1s, coaching, performance management, and career development.
• Create an environment where expectations are clear, feedback is direct, and engineers can do strong work and grow their careers.
• Own the team’s delivery and operational cadence, keeping priorities, scope, risks, dependencies, and timelines visible and realistic.
• Partner with a Product Manager and Staff Engineer to shape the IAM strategy, roadmap, and technical direction.
• Guide technical decisions across identity, authentication, and authorization while relying on the expertise of engineers and technical partners.
• Lead the adoption of shared IAM capabilities and supported integration patterns across nesto’s engineering teams.
• Coordinate with teams that build on or contribute to IAM capabilities, clarifying ownership and managing upstream and downstream dependencies.
• Ensure the team builds secure, reliable, observable, and maintainable services that meet nesto’s compliance needs.
• Represent the IAM team in cross-functional discussions, translating technical trade-offs, delivery risks, and decisions for different audiences.

Who we’re looking for

• 3+ years of people management experience, including coaching, performance management, hiring, and supporting career growth.
• A strong software engineering background and enough technical depth to guide teams building security-sensitive systems.
• Experience leading complex work across multiple engineering teams, with a track record of aligning priorities, ownership, dependencies, and expectations.
• Strong delivery leadership. You can scope, sequence, and reduce risk in work with multiple moving parts.
• Sound judgment across identity, authentication, authorization, security, and platform architecture.
• Experience building or operating shared platforms, services, or capabilities used by other engineering teams.
• The ability to communicate technical decisions, risks, and trade-offs clearly with both technical and non-technical partners.
• A collaborative leadership style. You know when to make a decision, when to facilitate one, and when to rely on engineers and technical experts.

Bonus points if you have

• Experience working in fintech or another regulated industry.
• Experience building, scaling, or modernizing shared identity, authentication, or authorization capabilities.
• Experience leading a platform team through adoption across multiple products or engineering teams.
• Experience partnering with Security, Risk, Compliance, or Audit teams.

The Reward

• The A-Team: Work alongside high-performing talent in the industry.
• Employee Mortgage Program: Exclusive, preferred low rates for our own team members.
• Time-Off: Generous policy including 4 weeks of vacation per year.
• Health & Wellness: Premium benefits plan fully paid by nesto, annual wellness budget, and 24/7 telemedicine access.
• Remote-First: This is a remote position that can be filled by anyone from anywhere in Canada.

Diversity & Inclusion At nesto, we believe that creativity and collaboration are the result of a diverse team. We are committed to fostering a culture of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. We strongly encourage women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and individuals with disabilities to apply.