Principal Engineer, Identity & Authorization

Relha LLC; Beaverton (OR); Hybrid; USD 149,000 - 314,000; Full time

Job summary

Nike seeks a Principal Engineer to shape and scale our authorization platform across the enterprise. You will transform access controls from scattered apps to a centralized policy-driven system, influencing governance and engineering practices.

As a hands-on leader, you will mentor engineers, write production code, and ensure secure, scalable identity and access management across global platforms. This hybrid role anchors at our Beaverton campus with options for remote work.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Security, or related field.
• Minimum 8+ years designing and delivering enterprise-scale software platforms and distributed systems.
• Deep expertise in authorization architectures and identity platforms.
• Experience designing centralized policy decision services and policy enforcement architectures.
• Influence technical strategy and mentor engineers across multiple teams.
• Hands-on software engineering with production code in backend/platform languages.

Responsibilities

• Lead evolution of Nike's authorization strategy and platforms across the enterprise.
• Define and drive the enterprise authorization architecture, standards, and practices.
• Oversee transition to centralized policy decision services and reusable capabilities.
• Design policy-based authorization solutions expressed as code and deployed via CI/CD.
• Mentor engineers and influence architectural decisions across teams.
• Write production code and operate in a build-and-deploy role across multi-region production.

Skills

Authorization architectures

Identity and access management

Distributed systems

Policy as code

Mentoring engineers

Production code

Backend engineering

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent in CS/SE/Security

Tools

Policy as code

Backend languages

Distributed systems deployment

Job description

Principal Engineer, Identity & Authorization

Open to remote work except in South Dakota, Vermont and West Virginia.

The annual base salary for this position ranges from $149,100.00 in our lowest geographic market to $313,900.00 in our highest geographic market. Actual salary will vary based on a candidate's location, qualifications, skills and experience.

Information about benefits can be found here.

Position Location & Schedule

This position is based at our incredibly beautiful worldwide campus headquarters location in Beaverton, Oregon. You'll work a "4/1 hybrid" schedule - Mondays - Thursdays are in the office and it's optional if you'd like to work Fridays from the Nike campus office or your home office.

Who You’ll Work With

Nike's Enterprise Identity & Access Management team enables secure digital experiences across workforce, consumer, partner, and machine identity ecosystems. This Principal Engineer partners with Security, Enterprise Architecture, Platform Engineering, and Product Engineering leaders to shape authorization capabilities used across Nike's global technology organization.

Who We Are Looking For

We're looking for a Principal Engineer to help define the future of authorization at Nike. This role will lead the transformation from fragmented, application-specific access controls to a modern, enterprise-wide authorization platform where access decisions are defined as policy, evaluated centrally, and consistently enforced across applications, APIs, cloud platforms, data systems, and business processes. The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in authorization architecture, distributed systems, and identity platforms, along with a passion for solving complex security and business challenges through scalable engineering solutions. They are recognized technical leaders who can influence enterprise strategies, establish architectural standards, and align diverse engineering organizations around a shared vision for identity and access. Success in this role requires the ability to translate business intent, security requirements, and governance controls into reusable authorization services and policy frameworks that enable agility, strengthen security, and reduce operational complexity across Nike's global technology ecosystem.

The candidate should have:

Bachelor's degree or equivalent combination of education, experience, or training in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Security, or a related field.

8+ years of experience designing and delivering enterprise-scale software platforms and distributed systems.

Deep expertise in authorization architectures, identity and access management, authentication, identity governance, and privileged access concepts.

Experience designing centralized policy decision services, policy enforcement architectures, and policy-as-code solutions.

Demonstrated ability to influence technical strategy, mentor engineers, and drive architectural transformation across multiple organizations.

Hands-on software engineer who actively writes and maintains production code — this is a build-and-deploy role, not an architecture-only. Demonstrated coding depth in a backend or platform language, with direct experience deploying distributed systems into live, high-availability, multi-region production environments.

What You’ll Work On

You will lead the evolution of Nike's authorization strategy and platforms, helping transform how access decisions are defined, managed, and enforced across the enterprise. By partnering with engineering, security, and architecture teams, you will build scalable authorization capabilities that enable secure innovation while simplifying access management and governance at global scale.

You will define and drive the enterprise authorization architecture, establishing standards, patterns, and engineering practices that enable consistent access control across applications, APIs, cloud platforms, and business services.

You will lead the transition from application-specific roles, permissions, and user exceptions to centralized policy decision services and reusable authorization capabilities.

You will design and implement policy-based authorization solutions that allow business, security, and compliance requirements to be expressed as code, tested automatically, and deployed through modern engineering workflows.

You will partner with Security, Enterprise Architecture, Platform Engineering, and Product Engineering teams to embed authorization, governance, and identity controls directly into the software development lifecycle.

You will influence the future of Identity as Policy at Nike by developing shared services, frameworks, and platforms that support workforce, consumer, partner, and machine identities.

You will mentor engineers, guide architectural decisions, and help teams adopt scalable authorization and identity capabilities that reduce operational complexity while improving security and compliance outcomes.

You will identify opportunities to modernize legacy access management approaches and create policy-driven solutions that enable faster delivery of secure digital experiences across Nike's global technology ecosystem.

You will write production code and apply enterprise-level coding practices to build and deploy the core authorization services.

We offer a number of accommodations to complete our interview process including screen readers, sign language interpreters, accessible and single location for in-person interviews, closed captioning, and other reasonable modifications as needed. If you discover, as you navigate our application process, that you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, please complete the Candidate Accommodation Request Form.