Staff Software Engineer, Identity & Access Management

Rainfall Ventures; Menlo Park (CA); On-site; USD 230,000 - 270,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

401(k) matching

Equity ownership

Performance bonuses

Catered meals and events

Job summary

Robinhood is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to shape the company’s identity architecture and scale secure access infrastructure. You will lead design decisions for employee, service, and non-human authentication across the platform.

You’ll implement modern identity protocols, build Tier-0 infrastructure, and govern access for AI agents and model contexts. This role demands technical leadership, architecture ownership, and mentorship across multiple teams.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of backend engineering or security platform engineering experience with scale.
• Demonstrated ability designing security platforms and identity infrastructure from the ground up.
• Strong understanding of OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, SAML, or WebAuthn.
• Experience implementing RBAC, ABAC, or policy-based access control models.
• Experience defining guardrails and governance for AI agents, LLMs, or non-human workloads.

Responsibilities

• Define and build core access control architecture for employee, service, and non-human access across company resources.
• Design, build, and operate Tier-0 identity infrastructure using Go, Python, Rust, or similar languages.
• Implement modern identity protocols and access frameworks (OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, RBAC, ABAC).
• Develop guardrails for AI agents, LLMs, and MCP systems.
• Create automated, developer-friendly self-service access provisioning and auditing platforms.
• Set technical direction, draft architectural proposals, and mentor engineers across the org.

Skills

Backend engineering

Identity infrastructure

Identity protocols

Access control models

AI security governance

Systems architecture

Technical ownership

Job description

Join us in building the future of finance.

Our mission is to democratize finance for all. An estimated $124 trillion of assets will be inherited by younger generations in the next two decades. The largest transfer of wealth in human history. If you’re ready to be at the epicenter of this historic cultural and financial shift, keep reading.

About the Role + Team

The Security Engineering team builds the identity and access control plane governing how employees, services, and agentic workloads access Robinhood’s critical infrastructure. We are a platform-building engineering team focused on creating secure, frictionless, and automated self-service access systems at scale.

As a Staff Software Engineer on this team, you will shape Robinhood’s foundational identity architecture, define technical strategy, and build Tier-0 access infrastructure used across the entire company! From solving complex authentication and authorization challenges to setting secure guardrails for emerging AI and agentic workflows, your technical leadership will directly impact every product team at Robinhood!

What You’ll Do

• Access Control Plane Architecture: Define and build the core technical architecture for managing employee, service, non-human, and agentic access across company-wide resources
• Tier-0 Platform Engineering: Design, build, and operate highly available, resilient, and observable backend identity infrastructure using Go, Python, Rust, or comparable systems languages.
• AuthN & AuthZ Solutions: Implement modern identity protocols and access frameworks (OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, RBAC, ABAC, and policy-based access controls).
• AI & Agentic Access Governance: Develop secure access patterns, identity frameworks, governance, and observability guardrails for AI agents, LLM applications, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) systems.
• Self-Service Developer Experience: Create automated, developer-friendly platforms that allow teams to request, approve, provision, and audit access without manual security operations friction.
• Leadership: Set technical direction, author key architectural proposals, mentor engineers across the org, and partner closely with Infrastructure, Data, and Security teams.

What You’ll Need

• 8+ years of backend engineering or security platform engineering experience, with a focus on building systems at scale.
• Platform-Builder Expertise: Demonstrated experience designing and building security platforms, access management control planes, or identity infrastructure from the ground up (rather than security operations or third-party tool administration).
• Identity Domain Depth: Strong understanding of core identity primitives, least-privilege access, and protocols such as OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, SAML, or WebAuthn.
• Modern Auth Models: Experience implementing role-based, policy-based, or attribute-based access control models across human and machine workloads.
• AI / Non-Human Workload Exposure: Experience or strong foundational capability in defining security guardrails, access policies, or governance models for AI agents, LLMs, or non-human workloads.
• Systems Architecture: Experience operating and maintaining high-availability, high-throughput Tier-0 infrastructure in cloud-native environments (AWS, Kubernetes).
• Strategic Influence: Proven track record of technical ownership, cross-functional alignment without authority, and driving multi-team initiatives to completion.

Bonus Points

• Background in cryptography, PKI, and certificate lifecycle management.
• Experience implementing zero-trust architectural models.
• Prior experience building identity or authorization platforms within high-growth technology environments.

What we offer

• Challenging, high-impact work to grow your career.
• Performance-driven compensation with multipliers for outsized impact, bonus programs, equity ownership, and 401(k) matching.
• Best-in-class benefits to fuel your work, including 100% paid health insurance for employees with 90% coverage for dependents.
• Lifestyle wallet — a highly flexible benefits spending account for wellness, learning, and more.
• Employer-paid life & disability insurance, fertility benefits, and mental health benefits.
• Time off to recharge including company holidays, paid time off, sick time, parental leave, and more!
• Exceptional office experience with catered meals, events, and comfortable workspaces.

In addition to the base pay range listed below, this role is also eligible for bonus opportunities + equity + benefits.

Base pay for the successful applicant will depend on a variety of job-related factors, which may include education, training, experience, location, business needs, or market demands. The expected base pay range for this role is based on the location where the work will be performed and is aligned to one of 3 compensation zones. For other locations not listed, compensation can be discussed with your recruiter during the interview process.

Base Pay Range:

Zone 1 (Menlo Park, CA; New York, NY; Bellevue, WA; Washington, DC): $230,000 — $270,000 USD

Zone 2 (Denver, CO; Westlake, TX; Chicago, IL): $203,000 — $238,000 USD

Zone 3 (Lake Mary, FL; Clearwater, FL; Gainesville, FL): $180,000 — $211,000 USD

Robinhood provides equal opportunity for all applicants, offers reasonable accommodations upon request, and complies with applicable equal employment and privacy laws. Inclusion is built into how we hire and work—welcoming different backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences so everyone can do their best. Please review the Privacy Policy for your country of application.