Senior Staff Machine Identity and PKI Engineer

Nscale; Houston (TX); On-site; USD 190,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical benefits

Dental benefits

Vision benefits

Flexible paid time off

Parental leave

Retirement plan participation

Job summary

Nscale is seeking a Senior Staff Machine Identity and PKI Engineer in the United States. You will define and execute a scalable PKI strategy, manage non-human identities, and drive secure, automated issuance and rotation across cloud-native platforms.

Lead CA design, certificate lifecycle, and post-quantum planning while aligning with SRE, platform, and product teams. This role emphasizes ownership, standards, and collaboration in a fast-growing AI infrastructure company.

Qualifications

• Deep PKI and workload identity experience.
• Experience with CA hierarchies and certificate lifecycle.
• Production Vault experience.

Responsibilities

• Build non-human identity register with owners, scope and rotation dates.
• Replace static credentials with short-lived identities using GitHub OIDC, workload identity federation, Kubernetes tokens, SPIFFE/SPIRE.
• Own PKI and implement certificate lifecycle management platform with ACME, cert-manager and EST/SCEP.
• Set machine secrets standard and coordinate with SRE using HashiCorp Vault.
• Define AI agent identities with owners, scoped access and kill switch.
• Plan for post-quantum cryptography across the estate.

Skills

Go

Python

Terraform

OIDC federation

Kubernetes

HashiCorp Vault

PKI

CA design

Tools

cert-manager

EST/SCEP

ACME

SPIFFE/SPIRE

GitHub Actions

KMS/HSMs

Job description

Location:

New York, Houston, San Francisco, Seattle

About The Role

Give every service account, workload, certificate, token and AI agent at Nscale an identity with a named owner, the least access it needs, and credentials that expire and renew automatically.

As our Senior Staff Machine Identity and PKI Engineer, you'll bring the team's deepest specialism in machine identity and PKI. You'll own long-term decisions that are hard to reverse, from certificate authority (CA) design to post-quantum planning, and set technical standards across SRE, platform and product.

What you'll do

• Build the non-human identity register: cloud service accounts, CI credentials, API keys, tokens, certificates and agent identities, each with an owner, scope and rotation date.
• Replace static, long-lived credentials with short-lived workload identity using GitHub Actions OIDC, cloud workload identity federation, Kubernetes service account tokens, and SPIFFE/SPIRE where it fits.
• Own Nscale's PKI and lead implementation of a certificate lifecycle management platform, with selection already under way. Automate issuance and renewal using ACME, cert-manager and EST/SCEP, and implement device certificates for managed endpoints.
• Set the machine secrets standard and work with SRE, who run HashiCorp Vault, on how workloads authenticate to it and use its PKI.
• Define how AI agents and tool integrations get their own identity, a human owner, scoped access and a tested kill switch.
• Plan for post-quantum cryptography across the certificate estate.

What you’ll bring

• 10+ years in platform engineering, infrastructure security or SRE, with deep work on workload identity, secrets and PKI, including designing CA hierarchies and leading standards adopted across several teams.
• Hands-on PKI experience covering CA hierarchy design, certificate profiles, revocation and HSMs, plus experience with a certificate lifecycle management platform such as Keyfactor, Entrust, AppViewX or DigiCert.
• Production experience with HashiCorp Vault, including auth methods, dynamic secrets and the PKI engine.
• Experience with cloud workload identity and OIDC federation from CI, plus Kubernetes service accounts and RBAC. GCP experience is preferred.
• The ability to write code in Go or Python and work with Terraform.

What We Can Offer You

• Highly competitive US compensation package (base + bonus + equity), with performance reviews every 12 months.
• Join one of the fastest-growing AI infrastructure companies — your chance to directly shape how global AI capacity is planned and deployed.
• Expect a dynamic progression plan tailored to your ambitions. Grow by leading critical cross-functional initiatives and shaping capital strategy — always with our full support.
• Human-First Flexibility: We treat you as humans first. Our flexible workplace trusts Nscalers to deliver, giving you the autonomy to shape your day around life's moments.

Equal Opportunities Statement

We strongly encourage applications from people of colour, the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, neurodivergent people, parents, carers, and people from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

If there’s anything we can do to accommodate your specific situation, please let us know.

The responsibilities outlined in this job description are not exhaustive and are intended to provide a general overview of the position. The employee may be required to perform additional duties, tasks, and responsibilities as assigned by management, consistent with the skills and qualifications required for the role.

For information on how Nscale handles candidate personal data, please see our Employee & Candidate Privacy Notice: Here.

Salary Range

The range below reflects the base salary for the position. Actual compensation may vary based on job-related factors such as skill set, experience, education, and location. In addition to base salary, this role may be eligible for bonus, equity, and/or commission programs. Nscale may offer a competitive benefits package including medical, dental, vision, flexible paid time off, parental leave, and retirement plan participation.

The range below reflects the base salary for the position. Actual compensation may vary based on job-related factors such as skill set, experience, education, and location. In addition to base salary, this role may be eligible for bonus, equity, and/or commission programs. Nscale may offer a competitive benefits package including medical, dental, vision, flexible paid time off, parental leave, and retirement plan participation.

Salary Range: $190,000 USD - $260,000 USD

For information on how Nscale handles candidate personal data, please see our Employee & Candidate Privacy Notice: Here.

Nscale does not accept unsolicited candidate submissions from recruitment agencies.