Staff Software Engineer - Agent Identity & Core Primitives

delinea; United States; On-site; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Delinea seeks a senior principal engineer to design core identity and authorization components for our AI security platform. You will model agent identities, delegated actions, and run-time access control across our systems.

You will set the technical direction and work with multiple teams to shape a scalable authorization framework. Reporting to the Director of Engineering, Securing AI, you will help select policy engines and define trust across external identity providers.

Qualifications

• Typically 10+ years of software engineering experience with deep expertise in identity, authorization, or distributed systems security.
• Hands-on experience building authorization or policy systems such as Cedar, OPA, OpenFGA, or comparable engine.
• Working knowledge of identity and token standards such as OAuth, OpenID Connect, SPIFFE/SPIRE, or workload identity federation.
• Track record of designing systems and interfaces that scale across teams.
• Ability to lead technical decisions spanning multiple teams and communicate them clearly.

Responsibilities

• Design the identity model for AI agents, including delegated actions and composite identities.
• Build the real-time authorization engine and select policy technology like Cedar/OPA/OpenFGA.
• Define trust for identities issued by platforms like Microsoft Entra and Salesforce and standards like OpenID Connect.
• Build authorization and continuous-evaluation capabilities using live session data and signals.
• Own interfaces and contracts across the platform and keep them clean as it grows.
• Act as a technical leader, setting direction and raising the bar on identity and authorization.

Skills

Identity model

Authorization engines

Distributed systems

OAuth/OpenID

Policy engines

Technical leadership

Tools

Cedar

OPA

OpenFGA

Job description

About Delinea:
Delinea is a pioneer in securing human and machine identities through intelligent, centralized authorization, empowering organizations to seamlessly govern their interactions across the modern enterprise. Leveraging AI-powered intelligence, Delinea’s leading cloud-native Identity Security Platform applies context throughout the entire identity lifecycle – across cloud and traditional infrastructure, data, SaaS applications, and AI. It is the only platform that enables you to discover all identities – including workforce, IT administrator, developers, and machines – assign appropriate access levels, detect irregularities, and respond to threats in real-time. With deployment in weeks, not months, 90% fewer resources to manage than the nearest competitor, and a 99.995% uptime, Delinea delivers robust security and operational efficiency without compromise. Learn more about Delinea on Delinea.com, LinkedIn, X, and YouTube.

Join our passionate, global team at Delinea and help us make the world a safer and more secure place. Our success is driven by world-class product leadership, outstanding engineers, and strategic investment from TPG. We value diversity, innovation, and a culture of respect and fairness. If you're ready to push boundaries and challenge the status quo in security, we want to hear from you.

Summary:

AI agents break the assumptions traditional identity systems were built on: who is acting, on whose behalf, and with what authority. In this foundational role you will design and build the core identity and authorization building blocks that everything else in our AI security platform depends on, from how we model agent identity and delegated actions to how we decide what an agent can do at runtime. The interfaces you define set the technical direction for the teams building on top of you. This role will report directly into our Director of Engineering, Securing AI.

What You’ll Do:

• Design the identity model for AI agents, including delegated (on-behalf-of) actions, composite identities, and how agent activity is attributed for audit.
• Build the authorization engine that decides in real time what an agent is allowed to do, and help select the underlying policy technology such as Cedar, OPA, or AuthZEN.
• Define how we establish trust in identities issued by outside platforms such as Microsoft Entra and Salesforce, and by emerging standards like OpenID Connect for agents.
• Build authorization and continuous-evaluation capabilities that draw on the live session and decision signals our identity products already produce.
• Own the interfaces and contracts the rest of the platform builds against, and keep them clean as the platform grows.
• Act as a technical leader across teams, setting direction and raising the bar on identity and authorization.

What You’ll Need:

• Typically 10 or more years of software engineering experience, with deep expertise in identity, authorization, or distributed systems security.
• Hands-on experience building authorization or policy systems such as Cedar, OPA, OpenFGA, or a comparable engine.
• Working knowledge of identity and token standards such as OAuth, OpenID Connect, SPIFFE and SPIRE, or workload identity federation.
• A track record of designing systems and interfaces that other teams build on at scale.
• Ability to lead technical decisions that span multiple teams and communicate them clearly to varied audiences.

We’d Love to See:

• Experience securing AI or agentic systems.
• Contributions to identity, authorization, or security standards or open source.
• Background in privileged access, secrets management, or identity governance.

For this Job, Delinea is not considering candidates that need any type of US work authorization now or in the future. This includes, but is not limited to: F1-OPT, F1-CPT, H-1B, TN, L-1, J1, etc.

Why work at Delinea?

• We're passionate problem-solvers helping the world's largest organizations protect what matters most: their human and machine identities.
• We invest in people who are smart, self-motivated, and collaborative.
• What we offer in return is meaningful work, a culture of innovation and great career progression.

At Delinea, our core values are STRONG and guide our behaviors and success:

• Spirited - We bring energy and passion to everything we do
• Trust - We act with integrity and deliver on our commitments
• Respect - We listen, value different perspectives, and work as one team
• Ownership - We take initiative and follow through
• Nimble - We adapt quickly in a fast-changing environment
• Global - We embrace diverse people and ideas to drive better outcomes

We believe weaving these core values into our day-to-day actions, and our process for hiring, evaluating, and promoting employees, helps us cultivate a work environment that embraces collaboration and camaraderie.

We take care of our employees. We offer competitive salaries, a meaningful bonus program, and excellent benefits, including healthcare insurance, as well as pension/retirement matching, comprehensive life insurance, an employee assistance program, time off plans, and paid company holidays.

Delinea is an Equal Opportunity and Affinity Action employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type with regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

Upon conditional offer of employment, candidates are required to complete comprehensive criminal background check, verification of education, and verification of employment, per employment policy. In addition, all publicly posted social media sites may be reviewed.