Chief Identity & Access Engineering

Madison-Davis, LLC; United States; Remote; USD 250,000 - 360,000; Full time

Job summary

Madison-Davis, LLC is seeking a seasoned Head of Authentication Engineering to lead enterprise authentication across workforce systems, applications, APIs, and cloud environments. This role blends high-level technical direction with direct engineering people management.

You will define authentication architecture, guide modernization efforts, and raise secure identity standards for traditional apps and AI-enabled systems while remaining hands-on to coach engineers.

Qualifications

• 12+ years in IAM or related security engineering.
• 5+ years direct people management of engineering teams.
• Deep hands-on enterprise authentication architecture and implementation expertise.
• Strong knowledge of SAML, OAuth 2.0, OIDC, federation, SSO, MFA, and token security.
• Experience with PingFederate, PingAccess, PingOne, or comparable platforms.
• Experience implementing passwordless or phishing-resistant authentication.
• Strong API security, delegated authorization, PKI/mTLS, and machine identity knowledge.
• Experience supporting cloud and hybrid identity requirements.
• Bachelor's degree in a relevant technical field or equivalent practical experience.

Responsibilities

• Own enterprise authentication architecture, strategy, standards, and engineering roadmaps.
• Lead and develop a distributed authentication engineering team, including staffing, coaching, and technical oversight.
• Design and oversee SSO, MFA, federation, and authentication solutions using SAML 2.0, OAuth 2.0, and OIDC.
• Drive passwordless and phishing-resistant authentication initiatives, including FIDO2 and passkeys.
• Design authentication and authorization patterns for APIs, cloud workloads, service identities, and AI-enabled systems.
• Establish secure token management, delegation, session security, and certificate-based authentication practices.
• Improve authentication platform availability, scalability, monitoring, and incident response.
• Partner with cybersecurity, application engineering, cloud platforms, and architecture stakeholders on complex technical decisions.

Skills

IAM leadership

Auth architecture

SAML

OAuth2

OIDC

SSO

MFA

Passwordless

Federation

API security

PKI/mTLS

Machine identity

Staff management

Cloud identity

Security engineering

AI identity

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

PingFederate

PingAccess

PingOne

SPIFFE/SPIRE

OPA

Cedar

ABAC

Job description

Madison-Davis, LLC is seeking a seasoned Head of Authentication Engineering to lead enterprise authentication across workforce systems, applications, APIs, and cloud environments. This role blends high-level technical direction with direct engineering people management.

You will define authentication architecture, guide modernization efforts, and raise secure identity standards for traditional apps and AI-enabled systems while remaining hands-on to coach engineers.