Principal Engineer Person & Trust Platform

Idme; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 242,693 - 307,125; Full time

Job summary

ID.me is seeking a Principal Software Development Engineer to lead data modeling and API contracts across the Person and Trust platforms. You will own the data model strategy and long-term architecture for the Person API, Trust Service, and Inspection Catalog, coordinating with Product, Security, and Compliance.

You’ll mentor engineers, drive architectural standards, and oversee the modernization of legacy identity data into scalable services while ensuring security and regulatory compliance.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience in complex domains.
• Proven API and data-contract ownership for trusted systems.
• Ability to set technical strategy and align teams without direct authority.

Responsibilities

• Own data model strategy and long-term architecture across multiple services.
• Define API contracts, versioning, and governance for internal/external use.
• Mentor engineers and drive domain leadership with clear ownership.
• Lead modernization and consolidation of identity data for scalability.
• Ensure security, privacy, and compliance of domain data.

Skills

Software engineering

Technical authority

Data modeling

APIs & contracts

Leadership without authority

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science

Tools

Graph databases

Cloud platforms (GCP/AWS/Azure)

Job description

Company Overview

ID.me is the next-generation digital identity wallet that simplifies how individuals securely prove their identity online. Consumers can verify their identity with ID.me once and seamlessly login across websites without having to create a new login and verify their identity again. Over 152 million users experience streamlined login and identity verification with ID.me at 20 federal agencies, 45 state government agencies, and 70+ healthcare organizations. More than 600+ consumer brands use ID.me to verify communities and user segments to honor service and build more authentic relationships. ID.me’s technology meets the federal standards for consumer authentication set by the Commerce Department and is approved as a NIST 800-63-3 IAL2 / AAL2 credential service provider by the Kantara Initiative. ID.me is committed to “No Identity Left Behind” to enable all people to have a secure digital identity. To learn more, visit https://network.id.me/.

ID.me is a full-time, in-office culture. Unless a specific job description explicitly states otherwise, all roles are on-site five days per week at one of our offices in McLean, VA; Mountain View, CA; New York City, NY; or Tampa, FL. Certain roles — such as field-based sales or other remote‑by‑design positions — may have different work arrangements as noted in their individual postings.

At ID.me, we embrace the thoughtful use of AI tools in our daily work and there are even occasions where we leverage AI in our hiring process. However, during the interview process, we want to understand your individual skills and experiences. Therefore, we have guidelines on how AI can be appropriately used during your application and interviews which can be found here.

About the Role

ID.me is seeking a Principal Software Development Engineer to serve as the technical authority across the Person and Trust platforms — the systems that define who a person is and how much confidence ID.me can place in that identity. You will own the data model strategy, API contracts, and long-term architecture across the Person API, the Trust Service, and the Inspection Catalog, along with the verification and validation evidence that connects them.

Person, Trust, and the Inspection Catalog are foundational systems at ID.me: together they determine who someone is, how inspection evidence is collected, and how much confidence to place in that identity. The role calls for deep expertise in data modeling and graph structures, applied to how verification and validation evidence and the resulting trust decisions are represented and queried. You will own how identity data is modeled — including how Person-to-SSN, Person-to-Face, and Person-to-Legal relationships are expressed — and how confidence in an identity is determined.

You’ll set technical direction, establish the patterns and contracts that other teams build against, and partner closely with Product, Architecture, Identity, Security, and Compliance to deliver a trustworthy foundation used by millions of users and trusted partners.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the data model strategy and long-term architecture across the Person API, Trust Service, and Inspection Catalog, keeping all three as the authoritative source of truth for identity, evidence, and confidence.
• Own the API contracts across the domain, including versioning, compatibility, and governance standards that internal and external consumers depend on.
• Set technical direction and design standards for the domain.
• Mentor staff and senior engineers, raising the bar for data modeling, API design, and trust architecture across the organization — and filling the domain leadership gap with intentional, lasting technical ownership.
• Lead the modernization and consolidation of legacy identity data into a scalable, modular set of services and contracts.
• Ensure the security, privacy, and compliance of Person, Trust, and Inspection Catalog data.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, including significant time as a recognized technical authority for a complex domain spanning multiple systems.
• Deep expertise in data modeling and graph data structures, including designing schemas and relationships that remain correct, performant, and auditable at scale.
• Proven track record designing and owning APIs and data contracts for source-of-truth systems used by internal and external consumers.
• Demonstrated ability to set technical strategy and drive alignment across engineering teams without direct authority.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience.

Preferred Qualifications

Especially important for this role:

• Hands‑on experience with graph databases and the modeling tradeoffs between graph and relational representations of connected identity data — this is central to how we represent Person-to-SSN, Person-to-Face, and Person-to-Legal relationships.
• Experience modeling evidence and confidence scoring into a coherent, queryable record — specifically connecting inspection evidence from the Inspection Catalog to trust decisions in the Trust Service.

Also valuable:

• Experience building or owning systems that model, store, and maintain person or entity attributes and relationships at scale.
• Expertise in NIST 800‑63 IAL2/AAL2 standards, including evidence requirements, verification methods, and identity lifecycle management.
• Experience with cloud‑native infrastructure (GCP, AWS, or Azure).
• Experience operating in regulated environments (security, compliance, or data privacy requirements).
• Familiarity with emerging identity and credentialing standards (e.g., Verifiable Credentials, Decentralized Identifiers, OIDC extensions).
• Excellent communication skills and a track record of influencing technical direction across an organization.

The annual base salary listed does not include a company bonus, incentive for sales roles, equity and benefits which will be determined based on experience, skills, education, relevant training, geographic location and role.

ID.me offers comprehensive medical, dental, vision, health savings account, flexible spending accounts (medical, limited purpose, dependent care, commuter benefit accounts), basic and voluntary life and AD&D insurance, 401(k) with company match, parental leave, ability to participate in unlimited paid time off subject to the terms and conditions of the PTO policy, including 8 company wide holidays, short and long‑term disability insurance, accident and critical illness insurance, referral bonus policy, employee assistance program, pet insurance, travel assistant program, wellbeing and childcare discounts, benefit advocates, and a learning and development benefit.

Final offers may vary from the amount listed based on qualifications, professional experiences, skills, education, relevant training, geographic location, and other job related factors.

Mountain View, CA Pay Range

$242,693 — $307,125 USD

ID.me maintains a work environment free from discrimination, where employees are treated with dignity and respect. All ID.me employees share in the responsibility for fulfilling our commitment to equal employment opportunity. ID.me does not discriminate against any employee or applicant on the basis of age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. ID.me adheres to these principles in all aspects of employment, including recruitment, hiring, training, compensation, promotion, benefits, social and recreational programs, and discipline. In addition, ID.me's policy is to provide reasonable accommodation to qualified employees who have protected disabilities to the extent required by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances where a particular employee works. Upon request we will provide you with more information about such accommodations.

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