The Role
As a Software Engineer on the Governance team, you'll build secure system layers, focusing on access controls, policy enforcement, and admin experience, ensuring Retool is trusted for enterprise use.
Summary Generated by Built In
ABOUT RETOOL
Nearly every company in the world runs on custom software for critical operations like tracking performance metrics, handling support workflows, building admin dashboards, and countless processes you might never have thought of. But most companies don't have the resources to properly invest in these tools, leading to a lot of old, clunky internal software, or worse, teams still stuck in manual and spreadsheet workflows.
AI has changed who gets to build software. The definition of "developer" now includes analysts, operators, and domain experts creating solutions directly—and the tools they reach for are multiplying by the week. That's both an opportunity and a challenge: as more people build with more AI tools, the risk of shipping ungoverned software into production grows just as fast.
At Retool, we're building the platform that makes all of it safe to ship. Build with any AI tool you want, then deploy into one place that connects to your real business data, enforces enterprise policies automatically, and lets teams create once and reuse everywhere with shared, trusted components. The cost of building software has collapsed. The cost of governing it hasn't—and that's the problem we solve.
Developers and domain experts have already automated over 100 million hours of work on our platform, freeing them to focus on creative problem-solving and strategic work that drives real business value. The people closest to the problem can now build the software to solve it, safely, and within enterprise guardrails.
Let's build the future together.
WHY WE'RE LOOKING FOR YOU
AI is making it possible for anyone to build software in minutes. But building fast and building safely are two very different things. As development democratizes and more people across an organization create apps, agents, and workflows, the risk surface expands dramatically. The question enterprises are asking isn't "can we build it?" but rather "can we trust what's been built?"
On the Governance team, we're solving this problem by building the foundational layer that sits between builders and data. This is the policies, access controls, audit trails, and security infrastructure that make Retool the platform enterprises trust to scale across their entire organization.
Your work will span the stack, from full-stack web development to product infrastructure. You'll focus on the problems that matter most to customers with thousands of employees on Retool: What slows them down? What keeps their security teams up at night? How do we make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard? This team is responsible for making Retool deeply trusted by our largest customers.
PROJECTS YOU MIGHT WORK ON
- Data Access Control Layer: Design and build the system that enforces table-level, column-level, and row-level access controls across Retool's database connectors. You might work on: policy modeling, query rewriting to inject security constraints at the data engine, and building the admin UX that makes complex rules intuitive to configure. The goal: when a builder creates an app, the data security is already handled, automatically.
- Agentic Governance: When does human authority need to back agent actions? How does this evolve as more parts of day to day work are automated over time? What does an admin need to answer "what's the worst this agent could do?" at a glance? Design & build the primitives that ensure agents are soundly permissioned and observable.
- Automated Security Center & Admin Control Panel: Build the intelligent layer that proactively keeps Retool secure and well-governed. Surface under-authenticated resources, flag potentially dangerous access patterns, monitor usage analytics and spend, and integrate with compliance and DLP tools so security and admin teams get actionable insights instead of raw data, and Retool gets smarter about protecting customers the more they use it.
THE SKILLSET YOU'LL BRING
- 2–8 years of professional software engineering experience on high impact teams; ideally some of which has been at startups
- Experience owning technically challenging, cross-functional projects from start to finish
- Strong fundamentals across the entire stack, with a strong grasp of backend systems design, data modeling, and building reliable, scalable software
- You communicate clearly in design docs, code reviews, and cross-functional discussions
- You care about code quality, testing, and leaving the codebase better than you found it
- You're motivated by solving real customer problems, not just writing clever code
NICE TO HAVE
- Experience building authorization, access control, or security systems
- Experience with policy engines, query rewriting, or data governance platforms
- Familiarity with RBAC, ABAC, or relationship-based access control models (Zanzibar, OPA, Cedar)
- Familiarity with authentication and authorization protocols (OAuth, SAML, SCIM, or similar)
- Experience designing taming complexity in admin-facing UIs or platform management tools
WHO YOU'LL WORK WITH
You'll join a team that sits at the intersection of security, platform infrastructure, and product experience. You'll work alongside engineers, product managers, and designers who care deeply about making enterprise governance feel effortless rather than burdensome. You'll also partner closely with teams across Retool because governance touches everything.
We're a hard-working, passionate bunch who are motivated by collaboration, strong results, and bringing the impact of Retool to our customers. When we're in the office, we enjoy eating lunch together, and we've been known for our lively game nights. But at the root of it all, we come together to show our customers and not-quite-yet customers how Retool can make them and their companies more efficient and successful.
We're building systems that the largest companies in the world will rely on to keep their data safe and their teams productive. If you want your work to be foundational, the kind of engineering that unlocks everything else, this is the team.
Location: San Francisco, CA
Retool offers generous benefits to all employees and hybrid work location. For more information, please visit the benefits and perks section of our careers page!
For candidates based in the United States, the pay range(s) for this role is listed below and represents base salary range for non-commissionable roles or on-target earnings (OTE) for commissionable roles. This salary range may be inclusive of several career levels at Retool and will be narrowed during the interview process based on a number of factors such as (but not limited to), scope and responsibilities, the candidate’s experience and qualifications, and location.
Additional compensation in the form(s) of equity and/or commission are dependent on the position offered. Retool provides a comprehensive benefit plan, including medical, dental, vision, and 401(k). Pay and benefits are subject to change at any time, consistent with the terms of any applicable compensation or benefit plans.
The base pay range for this role is $163,800 – $306,000 per year.
Retool offers generous benefits to all employees and hybrid work location. For more information, please visit the benefits and perks section of our careers page!
Retool is currently set up to employ all roles in the US and specific roles in the UK. To find roles that can be employed in the UK, please refer to our careers page and review the indicated locations.
Skills Required
- 2-8 years of professional software engineering experience
- Experience owning technically challenging, cross-functional projects from start to finish
- Strong fundamentals across the entire stack, with a strong grasp of backend systems design, data modeling, and building reliable, scalable software
- Ability to clearly communicate in design docs, code reviews, and cross-functional discussions
- Commitment to code quality, testing, and maintaining the codebase
- Motivation to solve real customer problems, not just write clever code
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The Company
What We Do
Retool is a development platform for building business software. Users can visually design apps that interface with any database or API, and switch to code to customize how their apps look and work. With Retool, developers ship more apps and move their business forward—all in less time. Thousands of teams at companies like Amazon, DoorDash, Peloton, and Brex collaborate around custom-built Retool apps to solve internal workflows. We're just getting started and growing quickly—join us!
Why Work With Us
Retools are solution drivers—whether fixing a button misalignment or enabling customers to build with the newest AI technologies, we wear many hats and act like owners. Our small teams work on big problems, pushing hard and moving quickly to create outsized impact. We hold each other accountable and celebrate together when we get it right. Join us!
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