Vice President, Engineering - Authentication

Okta; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 310,000 - 426,800; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Bonus eligibility

Health insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

401(k)

PTO & parental leave

Job summary

Okta is seeking a Vice President, Engineering - Authentication for the Auth0 Product Unit to lead a large, globally distributed engineering organization in Chicago. You will report to the Auth0 Product Unit SVP of Engineering and drive the team building secure login experiences for B2B and B2C customers.

This role oversees the core authentication engine, developer tooling, and zero-trust AI agent frameworks, delivering scalable, reliable services while shaping the next generation of identity

Qualifications

• Experience leading SaaS engineering teams.
• Hands-on coding experience in the past.
• Experience with large-scale cloud services (AWS/Azure).
• Background in authentication, authorization or security is a plus.
• Strong Agile and DevOps practice and mentoring ability.

Responsibilities

• Scale the engineering organization to meet customer and product needs.
• Mentor and coach distributed engineering managers and teams.
• Collaborate with Product & Design on next-gen Identity products.
• Maintain security, performance, and availability SLAs during growth.
• Lead developer experience and policy enforcement for AI-enabled use cases.
• Plan roadmap with Program Management and Engineering leadership.

Skills

Leadership

Full-stack development

Cloud infrastructure

Agile/DevOps

Security expertise

Communication skills

Tools

AWS

Azure

Job description

Secure Every Identity, from AI to Human

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.

Secure Every Identity, from AI to Human

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.

We are seeking a Vice President, Engineering - Authentication for the Auth0 Product Unit to lead a large, globally distributed engineering organization. You will report to the Auth0 Product Unit SVP of Engineering.

This technical leadership role is responsible for delivering on Authentication's mission: seamless, secure, and scalable login experiences with robust extensibility for both B2B and B2C customers. Your teams own the core engine that authenticates billions of requests, the developer tools that make integration seamless, the extensibility capabilities that allow customers to tailor Auth0 to meet the demands of any use case, and the pioneering frameworks that allow AI Agents to operate securely in a zero-trust world.

What You Will Do:

• Work closely with our Engineering managers, Directors, and SVP of Engineering to help scale our Engineering Organization to meet our customer and product needs.
• Lead, mentor and coach a mix of new and seasoned engineering managers running widely distributed teams.
• Work closely with Product & Design to build the next generation of Identity products.
• Provide operational excellence and implement processes and policies that create efficiencies during a time of massive growth.
• Maintain our high security, performance and availability SLAs as we rapidly scale for enterprise customers handling billions of authentications.
• Lead teams that continuously ship new features with aggressive deadlines, measure the results, and iterate.
• Redefine "Developer Experience" for the AI era by building the infrastructure that allows developers to deploy autonomous agents with machine-readable identity, scoped permissioning, and natural-language policy enforcement.
• Continuously monitor team structure and investment levels providing recommendations for optimizations.
• Partner in a leading role with Program Management and Engineering leadership in roadmap planning.

What You Will Bring:

• 8+ years of experience in leading Saas product engineering teams
• 12+ years of experience in various elements of full-stack software development front end, back end, data and insights, and hands-on coding experience in the past.
• 3+ years of experience running or using large-scale infrastructure supporting a cloud service in a public cloud provider, preferably AWS and/or MS Azure.
• Background in Agentic experience, authentication, authorization and/or Security is a big plus
• Extensive experience using Agile and DevOps methodologies to build software services and associated infrastructure supporting monitoring, alerting and tooling required to operate it.
• Deep expertise in securing cloud infrastructure (e.g. security monitoring, key-based authentication, role-based authorization, audit logging and patching).
• Proven ability to earn respect, trust from people you work with and to mentor top technical talent.
• Technical leadership experience in design, implementation, and support of core back end, front end, customization, and database services that are highly reliable, flexible, and scalable. You can apply good judgment to the steepest software engineering challenges.
• You set high standards and have demonstrated the ability to build and lead a high-performance team.
• Prior experience in a fast-paced and high-growth company and are comfortable with putting systems in place and adjusting and adapting when needed.
• Effective verbal, written communication and interpersonal skills.

PID: P-1113.1_3437807

Below is the annual base salary range for candidates located in California (excluding San Francisco Bay Area), Colorado, Illinois, New York and Washington. Your actual base salary will depend on factors such as your skills, qualifications, experience, and work location. In addition, Okta offers equity (where applicable), bonus, and benefits, including health, dental and vision insurance, 401(k), flexible spending account, and paid leave (including PTO and parental leave) in accordance with our applicable plans and policies. To learn more about our Total Rewards program please visit: https://rewards.okta.com/us.

The annual base salary range for this position for candidates located in California (excluding San Francisco Bay Area), Colorado, Illinois, New York, and Washington is between:: $310,000 USD - $426,800 USD

The Okta Experience

• Driving Social Impact
• Developing Talent and Fostering Connection + Community

We are intentional about connection. Our global community, spanning over 20 offices worldwide, is united by a drive to innovate. Your journey begins with an immersive, in-person onboarding experience designed to accelerate your impact and connect you to our mission and team from day one.

Okta is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, ancestry, marital status, age, physical or mental disability, or status as a protected veteran. We also consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and convictions records, consistent with applicable laws.

If reasonable accommodation is needed to complete any part of the job application, interview process, or onboarding.

Notice for New York City Applicants & Employees: Okta may use Automated Employment Decision Tools (AEDT), as defined by New York City Local Law 144, that use artificial intelligence, machine learning, or other automated processes to assist in our recruitment and hiring process. In accordance with NYC Local Law 144, if you are an applicant or employee residing in New York City.