Open to remote work except in South Dakota, Vermont and West Virginia.
The annual base salary for this position ranges from $149,100.00 in our lowest geographic market to $313,900.00 in our highest geographic market. Actual salary will vary based on a candidate's location, qualifications, skills and experience.Information about benefits can be found here.
Position Location & Schedule
This position is based at our incredibly beautiful worldwide campus headquarters location in Beaverton, Oregon. You'll work a "4/1 hybrid" schedule - Mondays - Thursdays are in the office and it's optional if you'd like to work Fridays from the Nike campus office or your home office.
Who You’ll Work With
Nike's Enterprise Identity & Access Management team enables secure digital experiences across workforce, consumer, partner, and machine identity ecosystems. This Principal Engineer partners with Security, Enterprise Architecture, Platform Engineering, and Product Engineering leaders to shape authorization capabilities used across Nike's global technology organization.
Who We Are Looking For
We're looking for a Principal Engineer to help define the future of authorization at Nike. This role will lead the transformation from fragmented, application-specific access controls to a modern, enterprise-wide authorization platform where access decisions are defined as policy, evaluated centrally, and consistently enforced across applications, APIs, cloud platforms, data systems, and business processes. The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in authorization architecture, distributed systems, and identity platforms, along with a passion for solving complex security and business challenges through scalable engineering solutions. They are recognized technical leaders who can influence enterprise strategies, establish architectural standards, and align diverse engineering organizations around a shared vision for identity and access. Success in this role requires the ability to translate business intent, security requirements, and governance controls into reusable authorization services and policy frameworks that enable agility, strengthen security, and reduce operational complexity across Nike's global technology ecosystem.
The candidate should have:
Bachelor's degree or equivalent combination of education, experience, or training in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Security, or a related field.
8+ years of experience designing and delivering enterprise-scale software platforms and distributed systems.
Deep expertise in authorization architectures, identity and access management, authentication, identity governance, and privileged access concepts.
Experience designing centralized policy decision services, policy enforcement architectures, and policy-as-code solutions.
Demonstrated ability to influence technical strategy, mentor engineers, and drive architectural transformation across multiple organizations.
Hands-on software engineer who actively writes and maintains production code — this is a build-and-deploy role, not an architecture-only. Demonstrated coding depth in a backend or platform language, with direct experience deploying distributed systems into live, high-availability, multi-region production environments.
What You’ll Work On
You will lead the evolution of Nike's authorization strategy and platforms, helping transform how access decisions are defined, managed, and enforced across the enterprise. By partnering with engineering, security, and architecture teams, you will build scalable authorization capabilities that enable secure innovation while simplifying access management and governance at global scale.
You will define and drive the enterprise authorization architecture, establishing standards, patterns, and engineering practices that enable consistent access control across applications, APIs, cloud platforms, and business services.
You will lead the transition from application-specific roles, permissions, and user exceptions to centralized policy decision services and reusable authorization capabilities.
You will design and implement policy-based authorization solutions that allow business, security, and compliance requirements to be expressed as code, tested automatically, and deployed through modern engineering workflows.
You will partner with Security, Enterprise Architecture, Platform Engineering, and Product Engineering teams to embed authorization, governance, and identity controls directly into the software development lifecycle.
You will influence the future of Identity as Policy at Nike by developing shared services, frameworks, and platforms that support workforce, consumer, partner, and machine identities.
You will mentor engineers, guide architectural decisions, and help teams adopt scalable authorization and identity capabilities that reduce operational complexity while improving security and compliance outcomes.
You will identify opportunities to modernize legacy access management approaches and create policy-driven solutions that enable faster delivery of secure digital experiences across Nike's global technology ecosystem.
You will write production code and apply enterprise-level coding practices to build and deploy the core authorization services.
We offer a number of accommodations to complete our interview process including screen readers, sign language interpreters, accessible and single location for in-person interviews, closed captioning, and other reasonable modifications as needed. If you discover, as you navigate our application process, that you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, please complete the Candidate Accommodation Request Form.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent education, experience, or training in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Security, or a related field
- 8+ years of experience designing and delivering enterprise-scale software platforms and distributed systems
- Deep expertise in authorization architectures, identity and access management, authentication, identity governance, and privileged access concepts
- Experience designing centralized policy decision services, policy enforcement architectures, and policy-as-code solutions
- Ability to influence technical strategy, mentor engineers, and drive architectural transformation across multiple organizations
- Hands-on software engineering experience writing and maintaining production code in a backend or platform language
- Direct experience deploying distributed systems into live, high-availability, multi-region production environments
Nike Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Nike and has not been reviewed or approved by Nike.
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Retirement Support — A 401(k) with a company match is complemented by options such as a Mega Backdoor Roth and deferred compensation for eligible earners. Financial coaching and structured savings programs support long-term financial security.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — An Employee Stock Purchase Plan with a stock discount sits alongside broad-based equity vehicles like RSUs and non-qualified stock options. These avenues expand wealth-building opportunities beyond base pay.
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Parental & Family Support — Paid parental leave includes maternity and paternity time, recently expanded in the U.S. to 16 weeks and extended to part-time retail teammates. Additional supports include childcare assistance at select locations and family-building benefits such as fertility, surrogacy, and adoption.
Nike Insights
What We Do
At NIKE, Inc., we innovate to serve athletes*. Every teammate - from coder to creator - plays a role in making these athletes’ dreams real. Our tech, data, and digital teams push limits every day, building the future of sport and the tools that drive it. Here, curiosity is fuel. Innovation is the game plan. Different perspectives keep us on the offense. You’ll solve challenges worth tackling, grow fast and belong to a team that backs you to do the right thing. Bring your drive. Bring your bold. Let’s move the world, together. Take your first step at nike.com/careers * If you have a body, you’re an athlete.
Why Work With Us
At NIKE, Inc., your dedication fuels the future of sport. There is a sense of pride that comes from representing an iconic brand and shaping its future. Here, we treat every day as a new opportunity to push boundaries, ask tough questions and share whole-hearted convictions. We are a team – united by the belief that anything is possible.
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