Staff Software Engineer - Wallet/Authentication Platform

Idme; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 222,011 - 258,300; Full time

Job summary

ID.me in Mountain View, CA, is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead the authentication platform, ensuring secure identity verification for over 140 million members. Responsibilities include technical leadership, cross-team collaboration, and enhancing engineering culture.

The ideal candidate will have 8+ years of software development experience, particularly in backend services with Java and Spring Boot, as well as a commitment to AI-first practices. Competitive salary range is $222,011—$258,300.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software development experience at a senior or staff level.
• 5+ years in backend services engineering.
• 1+ year of AI-assisted development tools experience.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the technical roadmap for authentication platform services.
• Lead end-to-end design and implementation of authentication features.
• Set standards for code quality, testing, and incident response.

Skills

Java

Spring Boot

AI-assisted development tooling

Authentication and identity protocols

Security engineering

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Job description

Role Overview

ID.me is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to join the Wallet/Authentication Platform team, where we build and operate the core sign-in, registration, MFA, and account management infrastructure that over 140 million members rely on to access the ID.me identity wallet.

Authentication is the front door to ID.me. Every member’s journey begins with creating, signing into, or managing their Wallet. Our platform owns sign-in, registration, MFA, account recovery, password reset, and MyWallet, enabling verified identity across 20 federal agencies, 44 state governments, 66 healthcare organizations, and hundreds of consumer brands.

As a Staff Software Engineer, you will set technical direction for the authentication platform, drive cross-team architectural decisions, and serve as a force multiplier for the engineers around you. You bring deep expertise in identity, security, and distributed systems — and you use it to raise the bar for the entire team. Your work shapes how millions of people prove and access who they are online.

This position will work from our Mountain View, CA office five days per week.

Key Responsibilities

• Technical Leadership & Vision: Define and drive the technical roadmap for authentication platform services, identifying systemic challenges, architectural risks, and strategic opportunities. Author architecture proposals, lead design reviews, and own critical technical decisions across the team.
• Cross-Team Influence: Partner with Platform, Security, Identity, Product, and adjacent engineering teams to align on authentication standards, shared infrastructure, and cross-cutting concerns. Represent the team's technical perspective in org-level planning and architectural forums.
• Systems Design & Architecture: Lead end-to-end design and implementation of complex, high-impact authentication features — sign-in flows, MFA, federation, account lifecycle management — balancing security, scale, and developer ergonomics.
• Security & Risk Engineering: Define the team's approach to auth security: threat modeling, credential protection, session management, abuse mitigation, and real-time risk signal integration. Champion security as a first-class engineering discipline across every feature the team ships.
• Engineering Excellence: Set the standard for code quality, testing, observability, and incident response. Drive technical debt reduction and platform reliability improvements. Mentor senior and mid-level engineers through code reviews, design critiques, and pairing.
• AI-Augmented Development: Model and champion AI-first engineering practices — leveraging tools like Claude Code and Cursor to accelerate design, implementation, and review cycles — and help the broader team adopt these workflows effectively.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).
• 8+ years of professional software development experience, with demonstrated impact at a senior or staff level.
• 5+ years of experience in backend services engineering, with strong proficiency in Java and Spring Boot.
• 1+ years experience with AI-assisted development tooling (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor) with at least one year of daily use, and a demonstrated commitment to an AI-first engineering culture.

Preferred Qualifications

• Deep expertise in authentication and identity protocols: OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect (OIDC), SAML 2.0, FIDO2/WebAuthn, and related standards.
• Proven ability to lead large-scale technical initiatives from design through production, including driving alignment across multiple teams and stakeholders.
• Experience designing, building, or operating an Identity Provider (IdP) or Identity and Access Management (IAM) platform at scale.
• Familiarity with government identity and security frameworks: NIST SP 800-63 (IAL/AAL), FedRAMP, or Kantara Initiative accreditation requirements.
• Experience with federation, SSO, and enterprise identity integration patterns (e.g., SCIM, XACML, LDAP/Active Directory).
• Strong background in auth security engineering: threat modeling, credential attack mitigation, account takeover prevention, rate limiting, and session security.
• Experience with React or modern frontend frameworks in the context of authentication UX.
• Track record of mentoring senior engineers and driving meaningful improvements to engineering culture and practices.
• Startup or high-growth company experience with a strong bias toward ownership and execution.

Benefits

Mountain View, CA Pay Range $222,011—$258,300 USD

Equal Employment Opportunity

ID.me maintains a work environment free from discrimination, where employees are treated with dignity and respect. All ID.me employees share in the responsibility for fulfilling our commitment to equal employment opportunity. ID.me does not discriminate against any employee or applicant on the basis of age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. ID.me adheres to these principles in all aspects of employment, including recruitment, hiring, training, compensation, promotion, benefits, social and recreational programs, and discipline. In addition, ID.me's policy is to provide reasonable accommodation to qualified employees who have protected disabilities to the extent required by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances where a particular employee works. Upon request we will provide you with more information about such accommodations.