Senior Manager, Software Engineering - Authentication Platform

Salesforce; Bellevue (WA); On-site; USD 173,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Salesforce is seeking an Authentication Platform Engineering Manager to lead the core identity services powering our production IAM stack, including Kerberos, TOTP, and FIDO2. This role sits at the heart of secure, scalable access across our global infrastructure and reports to the Production IAM leadership.

You will coach engineers to design with Zero Trust, advance WebAuthn and LDAP protocols, and integrate AI-assisted development while preserving architectural integrity and security.

Qualifications

• 13+ years of software engineering experience.
• 3-5 years leading teams in infrastructure-centric environments.
• Expertise in Kerberos and identity protocols (SAML, OIDC, LDAP).
• Experience with large-scale, highly available systems in cloud or hybrid environments.
• Familiar with Java, Go, or C#, and Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines.
• Hands-on proficiency with AI development tools and evaluating AI outputs.
• Experience assessing candidates on prompts and multi-agent workflows.

Responsibilities

• Drive the strategy and execution for the Authentication Platform, ensuring scalable services.
• Provide technical leadership across Kerberos, LDAP, WebAuthn/FIDO2, and TOTP.
• Guarantee high availability of foundational services for the company.
• Partner with security architects to enforce Zero Trust and least privilege.
• Coach engineers to grow into higher-level system design in AI-augmented environments.
• Own integration of AI tools in the team’s development cycle with reviews.
• Guard architectural integrity and security, auditing AI-generated code.

Skills

Kerberos

LDAP

SAML

OIDC

WebAuthn

Kubernetes

AI tooling

Tools

AWS

GCP

CI/CD

Job description

To get the best candidate experience, please consider applying for a maximum of 3 roles within 12 months to ensure you are not duplicating efforts.

Job Category

Software Engineering

Job Details

About Salesforce

Salesforce is the #1 AI CRM, where humans with agents drive customer success together. Here, ambition meets action. Tech meets trust. And innovation isn’t a buzzword — it’s a way of life. The world of work as we know it is changing and we're looking for Trailblazers who are passionate about bettering business and the world through AI, driving innovation, and keeping Salesforce's core values at the heart of it all.

Ready to level-up your career at the company leading workforce transformation in the agentic era? You’re in the right place! Agentforce is the future of AI, and you are the future of Salesforce.

Location: Bellevue, WA

The Experience

The Authentication Platform Engineering Manager leads the team responsible for the core identity services that power Salesforce's production infrastructure, including Kerberos-based authentication, Time-based One-Time Password (TOTP), and Fast Identity Online 2 (FIDO2) systems. This role sits at the heart of our Production Identity and Access Management (IAM) stack, ensuring every access request across our global fleet is secure, authenticated, and resilient. You will manage a team of specialists who bridge legacy infrastructure protocols and modern, cloud-native identity standards to defend against sophisticated threats.

What You'll Actually Be Doing

• Drive the strategy and execution for the Authentication Platform, ensuring these foundational services scale horizontally across diverse environments.
• Provide technical leadership across a diverse protocol stack, from Kerberos and Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) to modern WebAuthn/FIDO2 and TOTP implementations.
• Guarantee the reliability of services that are foundational dependencies for the entire company, targeting high availability standards.
• Partner with security architects to implement Zero Trust principles, ensuring the platform enforces strict adherence to least privilege and robust identity verification.
• Develop each engineer's ability to work effectively in an AI-augmented environment, moving beyond tracking output to actively coaching growth into higher-level system design and architecture work.
• Own how AI tools are integrated into the team's daily development cycle, including configuration, feedback loops, and the judgment calls about when human review is required to validate output.
• Serve as the guardian of architectural integrity, security best practices, and technical standards as AI increases code volume, coaching engineers to critically audit AI-generated code for logic flaws, vulnerabilities, and performance issues.

You're Our Person If...

• You have 13+ years of software engineering experience, including 3-5 years leading teams in high-pressure, infrastructure-centric environments.
• You have proven expertise in Kerberos and identity protocols such as Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML), OpenID Connect (OIDC), and LDAP.
• You have experience managing systems with massive throughput and high-availability requirements in public cloud (AWS/GCP) or hybrid environments.
• You're familiar with Java, Go, or C#, and have experience with container orchestration (Kubernetes) and modern continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines.
• You have active, hands-on proficiency with AI development tools; full utilization is the baseline expectation, along with deep technical expertise sufficient to evaluate architectural integrity and make informed decisions about AI-generated output.
• You have experience assessing candidates on their ability to formulate effective prompts, evaluate AI outputs, and orchestrate multi-agent workflows in addition to foundational technical skills.

Even Better If...

• You have experience building or maintaining enterprise-grade Identity Providers (IdP) or Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) platforms.
• You understand hardware security modules (HSMs), public key infrastructure (PKI), and secure credential storage.
• You have knowledge of how authentication systems meet Payment Card Industry (PCI), SOC2, or Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requirements.
• You have experience managing on-call rotations for high-visibility production services, and a track record of hiring and growing senior engineering talent.

Unleash Your Potential

When you join Salesforce, you’ll be limitless in all areas of your life. Our benefits and resources support you to find balance and be your best, and our AI agents accelerate your impact so you can do your best. Together, we’ll bring the power of Agentforce to organizations of all sizes and deliver amazing experiences that customers love.

Accommodations

If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application or the recruiting process

Please note that Salesforce uses artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help our recruiters assess and evaluate candidates’ resumes and qualifications throughout the recruiting process. Humans will always make any candidate selection and hiring decisions. Please see our Candidate Privacy Statement for more information about how we use your personal data and your rights, including with regard to use of AI tools and opt out options.

Posting Statement

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In the United States, compensation offered will be determined by factors such as location, job level, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Certain roles may be eligible for incentive compensation, equity, and benefits. Salesforce offers a variety of benefits to help you live well including: time off programs, medical, dental, vision, mental health support, paid parental leave, life and disability insurance, 401(k), and an employee stock purchasing program. More details about company benefits can be found at the following link: https://www.salesforcebenefits.com.

At Salesforce, we believe in equitable compensation practices that reflect the dynamic nature of labor markets across various regions. The typical base salary range for this position is $172,500 - $260,100 annually. The range represents base salary only, and does not include company bonus, incentive for sales roles, equity or benefits, as applicable.