Staff Software Engineer (Agentic Identity)

Storm2; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 230,000 - 340,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage

Dental coverage

Vision coverage

401(k) plan

Gym stipend

Lunch stipend

Hybrid work model

Job summary

Storm2 is partnering with a high-growth FinTech startup to architect a scalable identity layer for AI-driven trust decisions. The Staff Software Engineer will design core identity infrastructure and secure credential workflows for agents interacting with banks, payment networks, and marketplaces.

You'll work primarily in Python and Go on modern cloud platforms, owning components from architecture through production deployment in a hybrid SF-based team.

Qualifications

• Experience building production-grade backend systems.
• Strong knowledge of authentication and authorization concepts (OAuth2.0, OIDC, JWT/JWS).
• Proficiency in Python or Go with ability to work across both.

Responsibilities

• Design and build core identity infrastructure for AI agents with multiple stakeholders.
• Implement secure credential issuance and verification systems using OAuth/OIDC, JWS, and JWTs.
• Develop high-performance verification services for real-time identity validation.
• Own identity architecture components including claims, authentication, and revocation.
• Build infrastructure connecting AI agents to verified entities securely.
• Develop onboarding and authorization flows for agent permissions.
• Maintain auditable systems for identity, credentials, and trust state.

Skills

Python

Go

PostgreSQL

OAuth/OIDC

JWT/JWS

Verifiable credentials

Security

Async architectures

Job description

Staff Software Engineer
AI-powered FinTech (KYB, Fraud, Risk, Identity)
SF-based (hybrid, 4 days in-office)
$230,000-$340,000 Base + Equity
I'm currently partnering with a high-growth Serie A FinTech start-up building an AI-native product that helps organizations verify and understand the businesses, individuals, and entities they interact and work with. The platform combines identity, risk, compliance, and external data into a unified infrastructure layer that financial institutions and technology companies can use to make faster, more reliable trust decisions.
They are now focusing on the identity layer for AI agents and agentic commerce. As autonomous agents increasingly open accounts, interact with APIs, purchase services, and initiate transactions on behalf of people and businesses, the team is building the identity and trust infrastructure required to verify which agent is acting, who or what it represents, and what it is authorized to do.

Responsibilities

• Design and build core identity infrastructure for AI agents interacting with financial institutions, payment networks, APIs, marketplaces, and other digital platforms.
• Build secure credential issuance and verification systems using technologies such as OAuth/OIDC, JWS, JWTs, and verifiable credentials.
• Develop high-performance verification services capable of validating identities, credentials, signatures, and authorization data in real time.
• Own components of the underlying identity architecture, including credential formats, claims, authentication mechanisms, revocation, and auditability.
• Build infrastructure that securely connects an AI agent with the verified business or individual it represents.
• Develop onboarding and authorization flows that allow businesses to securely grant agents and other software operators permission to act on their behalf.
• Build and maintain auditable systems for tracking identity, authorization, credential issuance, and changes in trust state.
• Work primarily across Python and Go, using modern cloud infrastructure, API frameworks, relational databases, and asynchronous systems.
• Collaborate closely with a small, senior engineering and product team while working with external platforms and infrastructure providers to define how agent identity should work in practice.
• Be part of a start-up inside a start-up and work directly with payment networks, banks, wallet providers and agent platforms.
• Take ownership of technically complex systems from architecture through production deployment and ongoing operation.

Requirements

• Strong software engineering background with experience building production-grade backend systems.
• Experience working on systems where security or cryptographic correctness is critical, such as identity providers, authentication systems, token issuers, signing services, credential systems, WebAuthn/passkeys, or similar infrastructure.
• Strong proficiency in Python or Go, with the ability and willingness to work across both.
• Deep understanding of authentication, identity and authorization concepts, particularly OAuth 2.0, OIDC, JWT/JWS, digital signatures, credentials, and key management.
• Comfortable reading technical specifications and RFCs and translating them into production systems.
• Experience designing APIs and distributed backend services where reliability, latency, security, and observability matter.
• Production experience with PostgreSQL and asynchronous application architectures.
• Strong understanding of the differences between identity, permissions, credentials, claims, and authorization.
• Comfortable operating in an early-stage environment with significant ownership and relatively little existing precedent.
• Bonus: Experience with verifiable credentials, decentralized identity, SD-JWT, OID4VC, or W3C credential standards.
• Bonus: Experience with append-only or cryptographically verifiable audit logs.
• Bonus: Experience building KYC/KYB, fraud, risk, or identity verification infrastructure.
• Bonus: Experience with edge infrastructure, CDNs, mTLS, Envoy, Cloudflare Workers, or other low-latency verification environments.
• Bonus: Exposure to emerging agentic payments, machine-to-machine commerce, or AI identity protocols.

Why Apply

• Build infrastructure for an emerging industry, working on identity and trust problems created by AI agents before established technical patterns or infrastructure have fully emerged.
• Solve genuinely difficult engineering problems: Work across cryptography, identity, authentication, authorization, distributed systems, security, and low-latency infrastructure.
• High level of technical ownership: Own meaningful parts of the architecture rather than contributing to a narrow feature surface.
• Small, senior team: Work closely with experienced engineers and company leadership in an environment designed for fast decision-making and execution.
• Competitive salary: $230,000-$340,000 base plus equity.
• 100% coverage of health, dental and vision premiums.
• 401(k) with company match.
• HSA contributions included.
• $250 monthly gym stipend.
• Daily lunch stipend.
• Hybrid working model with a strong emphasis on in-person collaboration.