Staff Identity Governance and Access Engineer

Okta; Washington; Hybrid; USD 190,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Work from home opportunities

Health + Wellness

Financial Benefits

Pay + Incentives

Time Off

Everyday Living

Resources

Job summary

Okta is seeking a Staff Identity Security Engineer to own OIG, OPA, and ISPM implementations and set technical direction across the team. The role emphasizes architecture ownership, automation, and mentorship to elevate identity security posture.

You will lead lifecycle, birthright, and RBAC strategy, drive Workday integration, and improve processes from joiner/mover/leaver to deprovisioning in a fast-paced enterprise environment.

Qualifications

• 4+ years of enterprise IGA/PAM/ISPM experience
• Birthright provisioning and RBAC architectures in production
• Okta certifications (Admin/Consultant/Workflows) preferred
• Experience with ServiceNow and Jira-based intake for IGA/PAM/ISPM operations

Responsibilities

• Own OIG architecture end-to-end and design access workflows
• Lead birthright, lifecycle, and RBAC strategies across enterprise
• Drive Workday integration architecture with real-time vs. batch sync
• Design mover/leaver automation and decommissioning processes
• Lead OPA, ISPM, and Zero Standing Privilege initiatives
• Own PAM/ISPM telemetry, KPIs, and compliance metrics
• Build and maintain Okta Workflows automation across IGA and PAM
• Mentor engineers and communicate risk and roadmaps to leadership

Skills

IGA/PAM/ISPM

Architecture leadership

RBAC design

Workday integration

ZSP design

JIT access

REST APIs

Jira integration

Tools

OPA tooling

Okta Workflows

CrowdStrike Falcon

Job description

• Identity is the key to unlocking the potential of AI. Okta secures AI by building the trusted, neutral infrastructure that enables organizations to safely embrace this new era. This work requires a relentless drive to solve complex challenges with real-world stakes
• We are looking for builders and owners who operate with speed and urgency and execute with excellence
• This is an opportunity to do career-defining work. We’re all in on this mission. If you are too, let’s talk
• The Identity Governance and Access Security team runs Identity Governance and Administration (IGA), Privileged Access Management (PAM), and Identity Security Posture Management (ISPM) for Okta itself — serving as Okta’s “Customer Zero.” The team owns the complete identity lifecycle for the workforce, from birthright provisioning through Workday to access certifications, privileged access management, and mover/leaver processes
• What the team builds becomes the reference architecture that Okta customers deploy at scale
• We’re looking for a Staff Identity Security Engineer to take deep technical ownership of our Okta Identity Governance (OIG), Okta Privileged Access (OPA), and ISPM implementations
• This is a senior individual-contributor role where you’ll set technical direction for how the team builds on top of these platforms and raise the bar for the engineering team through review, mentorship, and documentation
• You should be equally comfortable in an architecture discussion, in a live Okta Workflows debugging session, and writing the design doc that a Jira epic gets broken down from
• OIG Architecture Ownership: Own OIG architecture end-to-end — design access request workflows, entitlement/Resource Collections structures, and certification campaigns that reduce reviewer fatigue and rubber-stamping
• Lifecycle, Birthright & RBAC Strategy: Lead lifecycle, birthright, and RBAC strategy — design and deploy automated birthright access rules, RBAC frameworks, and seamless joiner/mover/leaver (JML) processes across the enterprise
• Workday Integration Architecture: Drive Workday integration architecture — balance scheduled reconciliation (attribute accuracy) with Real-Time Sync (immediate termination), and define the attribute sets that access rules depend on
• Mover/Leaver Automation: Design and harden mover/leaver automation — implement attribute-driven group re-evaluation on role changes, safe decommissioning of stale access, and close gaps between automated joiner flows and historically manual processes
• OPA, ISPM & Zero Standing Privilege: Lead OPA, ISPM, and Zero Standing Privilege (ZSP) initiatives — design privileged session access, Just-In-Time (JIT) elevation, break-glass emergency access, identity security vulnerability detection, and tiering models for Tier 0/Tier 1 systems
• PAM & ISPM Metrics: Own PAM and ISPM telemetry and KPIs — establish and track metrics around standing-privilege reduction, JIT adoption, stale access cleanup, and break-glass test success as ongoing operational measures
• Okta Workflows Automation: Build and maintain Okta Workflows automation — streamline access requests, approvals, and remediation across IGA and PAM processes using the Okta Workflows engine
• Technical Leadership & Mentorship: Mentor engineers, review designs, and communicate with leadership — be the technical escalation point for the team’s hardest problems, help junior engineers grow, and present clear updates, risk assessments, and roadmaps to executive stakeholders

Benefits

• Work from home opportunities
• Health + Wellness
• Financial Benefits
• Pay + Incentives
• Time Off
• Everyday Living
• Resources

The ideal candidate is a self-starter who thrives in an autonomous environment and actively drives “what’s next” for our identity security posture — identifying process bottlenecks, designing technical solutions, and pushing initiatives from concept to production without waiting for direction

• PAM/OPA Tooling: Production experience with OPA or equivalent PAM tooling, including Zero Standing Privilege, Just-In-Time access models, break-glass design, and admin tiering
• Identity Standards: Solid grounding in identity and access standards (SAML, OIDC, OAuth 2.0, SCIM) and role/attribute-based access control concepts
• Birthright Provisioning & RBAC: Demonstrated hands-on experience designing and deploying Birthright Provisioning models and RBAC architectures in production environments
• ISPM Tooling: Production experience with ISPM tools (such as Okta ISPM) that integrate with EDR solutions like Crowdstrike Falcon
• Autonomy & Executive Communication: Works independently and drives initiatives without waiting for direction, with the executive-ready communication skills to present updates, risks, and roadmaps to leadership
• Domain Experience: Minimum 4+ years of direct, advanced experience managing and administering enterprise IGA, PAM/ISPM tools and platforms
• Compliance Experience: Experience operating in SOX and compliance‑critical environments — understanding audit evidence requirements, segregation of duties, and access certification integrity
• Lifecycle Ownership: Track record of owning technical designs for identity lifecycle problems (joiner/mover/leaver) end‑to‑end, from design doc through production rollout
• U.S. soil status - the employee must be on U.S. soil, which means the 50 states, the District of Columbia, or outlying areas of the United States, as defined in Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 2.101, and be a U.S. person
• U.S. person status - the employee must be either a U.S. citizen as defined in 42 U.S. Code § 9102; a natural person who is a lawful permanent resident as defined in 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(20) or who is a protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3); or a U.S. national (i.e. includes citizens and non-citizens born in outlying possessions such as American Samoa and Swains Island), green card holders, refugees, and asylees. Working on a U.S. visa does NOT qualify as a U.S. person
• Experience governing non-human identities (service accounts, API tokens, secrets, AI agents/workload identities) and scaling access certification programs — including distinct ownership models, lifecycle states, and certification approaches
• Familiarity with ServiceNow and JIRA-based service request intake for IGA/PAM/ISPM operations
• Okta certifications — Okta Certified Administrator, Okta Certified Consultant, or Okta Workflows Specialist
• Technical integration experience with REST APIs, JSON parsing, webhooks, and Workday-to-IdP patterns (real‑time event delivery vs. scheduled reconciliation tradeoffs)
• Experience supporting compliance audits across multiple frameworks beyond SOX (SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, GDPR)