Principal Engineer, Identity and Access Management

Wolters Kluwer; Greater London; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Wolters Kluwer is seeking a senior architect to lead the design and engineering of a cloud-agnostic Identity and Authorization Platform. You will focus on authorization architecture for users, services, APIs, AI agents, and data across a multi-tenant SaaS platform, with emphasis on scalable policy engines and cross-cutting security controls.

The role requires deep experience in RBAC, ReBAC, ABAC, OAuth2, OpenID Connect, JWT, and SAML, plus practical use of SpiceDB, OpenFGA, Cedar, and OPA.

Qualifications

• 10+ years software engineering experience
• 5+ years in security/platform engineering
• Demonstrable experience building authorization engines

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture and implementation of authentication, authorization and identity federation
• Design fine-grained access control models (RBAC, ReBAC, ABAC, ACL)
• Develop policy engines and decision architectures (PEP→PDP→Policy Store→Decision)
• Collaborate with API Gateway, AI Gateway, Kubernetes, and service mesh teams
• Collaborate with API Gateway, AI Gateway, Kubernetes, Service Mesh, and mTLS.

Skills

Identity & Access Management

Authorization Architecture

RBAC / ReBAC / ABAC

OAuth2 / OpenID Connect

JWT / SAML

Policy Engines

Multi-tenant SaaS

Distributed Systems

Kubernetes / Istio

OpenFGA / SpiceDB / OPA

Tools

SpiceDB

OpenFGA

OPA

Cedar

Zanzibar

Policy Store

Istio

SPIFFE/SPIRE

Job description

Lead the design and engineering of a cloud-agnostic Identity and Authorization Platform that secures users, services, APIs, AI agents, and data across a multi-tenant SaaS platform. Unlike traditional IAM roles, this position focuses heavily on authorization architecture.

Responsibilities

Lead architecture and implementation of: Authentication Authorization Identity federation Fine-grained access control Own architecture for: RBAC ReBAC ABAC ACL Policy engines Relationship graphs Design authorization for: Web applications Mobile APIs Microservices AI Gateway Agent runtime MCP tools Knowledge Graph Vector stores Design authorization decision architecture: PEP ↓ PDP ↓ Policy Store ↓ Relationship Store↓ Decision Lead adoption of: OpenFGA / SpiceDB Cedar Open Policy Agent (OPA) Zanzibar concepts Work with platform teams on: API Gateway AI Gateway Kubernetes Service Mesh mTLS Essential experience 10+ years engineering 5+ years security platform experience Demonstrable experience building authorization engines using: RBAC ReBAC ABAC ACL Experience designing authorization for: Multi-tenant SaaS Microservices APIs Experience with: OAuth2 OpenID Connect JWT SAML Strong distributed systems experience Nice to have Google Zanzibar OpenFGA SpiceDB OPA Cedar Envoy Istio SPIFFE/SPIRE

Interview Practices

To maintain a fair and genuine hiring process, we kindly ask that all candidates participate in interviews without the assistance of AI tools or external prompts. Our interview process is designed to assess your individual skills, experiences, and communication style. We value authenticity and want to ensure we’re getting to know you—not a digital assistant. To help maintain this integrity, we ask to remove virtual backgrounds and include in-person interviews in our hiring process. Please note that use of AI-generated responses or third-party support during interviews will be grounds for disqualification from the recruitment process. Applicants may be required to appear onsite at a Wolters Kluwer office as part of the recruitment process.

About Wolters Kluwer

Join us, at Wolters Kluwer, and be part of a dynamic global technology company that makes a difference every day. We’re innovators with impact. We provide expert software and information solutions that the world’s leading professionals rely on, in the moments that matter most. You’ll make a real difference in the lives of millions of people. Together with our customers, we help to advance sustainability, health, justice, prosperity, and commerce around the world. You can thrive at Wolters Kluwer, where diversity is core to our collective strength and high performance. Be your unique self, share your creative ideas, do your best work, and take time to grow in our caring and inclusive culture where you can belong. Wolters Kluwer reported 2025 annual revenues of €6.1 billion. The group serves customers in over 180 countries, maintains operations in over 40 countries, and employs more than 21,000 people worldwide. Our customers work in industries that impact the lives of millions of people every single day. Our mission is to empower our professional customers with the AI-powered solutions they need to make critical decisions, achieve successful outcomes, and increase productivity. We deliver trusted, AI-powered expert solutions that combine deep domain knowledge, proprietary content, and advanced technology to provide expert-validated insights, automate workflows, and drive better outcomes. Today, nearly 70% of our digital revenues come from AI-powered solutions, reflecting our strategic focus on embedding AI into professional workflows and delivering measurable productivity gains. We are committed to helping professionals navigate complexity, improve the way they work, and solve critical challenges through cloud-based, AI-powered platforms that integrate seamlessly into their workflows and ecosystems. Our solutions are designed to deliver impact when it matters most, especially in high-stakes environments where accuracy and trust are essential. With a nearly 190-year legacy, Wolters Kluwer continues to evolve its portfolio of digital solutions and services to meet the changing needs of professionals worldwide, enabling them to work faster, make smarter decisions, and deliver better outcomes. For more information about our solutions and organization, visit www.wolterskluwer.com, or follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.

Talent Acquisition and Diversity

Wolters Kluwer has a dedicated team of experienced talent acquisition professionals who are ready to hear what makes you tick and share how Wolters Kluwer can help you achieve your goals and ambitions. Here Rasi Fawaz shares some tips on what recruiters are looking for on a resume. As a global organization, we recognize that solving a wide range of complex problems requires diverse perspectives and innovative thinking. We know that bringing our best to our customers, communities, and other key stakeholders requires a highly engaged and talented workforce – one that represents the diversity of those we serve and the communities where we live and work. We aim to provide a welcoming environment and equitable opportunities for all employees regardless of background, nationality, race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, age, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, or religion. This principle is ingrained in our company values and articulated in our Code of Business Ethics. At Wolters Kluwer, you’ll feel valued for your contributions, and you’ll know that your health, safety, and well-being are important to us. Our well-being benefits provide tools, programs, and resources to help our diverse employees feel healthy, happy, safe, and prosperous. Our global Together we thrive well-being program reflects our commitment to supporting colleagues across physical, mental, social, and financial well-being. That commitment has been recognized externally through Ragan’s Top Places to Work for Employee Wellbeing: Large Organization in 2024. More recently, Wolters Kluwer was recognized by Forbes as one of America’s Best Large Employers 2026 and America’s Best Employers for Engineers 2026. In 2025, Wolters Kluwer was also recognized by Forbes as one of America’s Best Employers for Women. To ensure we continue to drive innovation that enables us to develop products and services to best serve our customers, we cultivate a workplace culture rooted in mutual respect, bringing forward insights from a wide range of backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences. We are also committed to complying with laws requiring equal opportunity in hiring, promotion, and other employment decisions. All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, transgender status, and sexual orientation), national origin, disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law, and we do not tolerate discrimination on any of these bases. GDPR Wolters Kluwer (“we” or “us”) wants to inform you about the ways we process your personal information. In this Privacy & Cookie Notice we explain what personal information we collect, use and disclose. You'll find details related to GDPR and other data privacy policies on our Careers Privacy and Cookies page.