Software Engineer, Systems

At Keycard, we're building identity and access infrastructure for the agent-native era, where software isn't static but a dynamic, constantly changing system of AI agents working on behalf of people and businesses. Keycard gives every agent a verified identity and issues short-lived, task-scoped credentials at runtime, so agents can only do what they were asked to do, and every action is fully auditable. We're backed by a16z, Boldstart, and Acrew, and our founding team built and scaled Snyk, Auth0, HashiCorp, and Heroku.

We're hiring a Staff Platform Engineer to build the core systems and infrastructure that power Keycard — from identity services and enforcement paths to the developer platforms and automation that let every engineer ship with confidence.

Keycard is a control plane for agents: identity propagation, policy enforcement, audit logging, and runtime governance. You'll move up and down the stack — building Kubernetes operators and CI/CD automation one day, contributing to core product services the next. The systems you build need to provide deterministic guarantees around delivery, consistency, and availability, creating the leverage Keycard needs to deliver trusted agent-native experiences at global scale.

You'll work directly with founders, product, design, and the engineers building our SDKs and core services. You'll also help shape how we use agents internally — contributing to how Keycard becomes an agent-native engineering organization, not just a company that builds for one.

• You're a builder first, operator second — a programmer at heart who uses Go and/or Rust to create platforms and product systems. You've built developer-facing platforms (Kubernetes operators, CI/CD abstractions, internal tooling) as well as core services, and you think in terms of dynamic, reactive systems.

• Strong distributed systems instincts. You have expertise in consensus, coordination, and state management, and you build systems that are secure, resilient, and fault-tolerant with best-in-class observability.

• You treat the path to production as a product surface. You create automation, pipelines, and developer platforms that make shipping reliable software the default — empowering every engineer to deliver quickly and with confidence.

• You thrive in 0→1 environments. You make hard trade-offs to ship today while laying groundwork for the long-term system, and you use iteration to accelerate the learning loop.

• You lead by example — raising the bar for technical excellence while helping those around you grow. You communicate clearly through written plans and async updates, and know when to jump on a call.

• Experience with identity and access protocols (OIDC, OAuth, mTLS) and active engagement with emerging agent protocols like MCP and A2A.

• Background in edge computing, intelligent routing, or globally distributed systems — with ideas about how to make agent-native applications fast and resilient anywhere.

• Experience extending runtimes with eBPF, service meshes, custom Kubernetes operators, or plugin-driven architectures (WASM, dynamic policy engines).

• Hands-on experimentation with coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, MCP) and strong opinions on how engineering organizations should adopt them.

• Build at the Frontier: Work every day at the frontier of agent-native systems — shipping, inventing, and iterating on technology that hasn’t been built before. You’ll be given huge autonomy, the opportunity to gain mastery, and the chance to work in a team that holds each other accountable to succeed.

• Truly Agent-Native Culture: At Keycard, we don’t just enable others to adopt agents — we use them ourselves to build. You’ll help shape an organization that embeds AI into its foundation as an enduring competitive advantage.

• Compensation With Upside: Market-competitive salaries and generous equity packages (4-year vest, 1-year cliff) give you the security to focus on building — and the asymmetric upside of ownership in a company chasing a category-defining mission.

• Comprehensive Benefits & Recharge: Health, dental, vision, and paramedical coverage for you and your family, plus 4 weeks vacation, 11 statutory holidays, and 1 volunteer day annually. We encourage at least 2 weeks off each year to fully recharge.

• Tools That Keep You Ahead: A new MacBook Pro, a $500 stipend for peripherals, and the best AI tools available so you can work at the forefront of agent-native workflows.

• Remote-First Flexibility: We are a remote-first team prioritizing asynchronous collaboration, with hiring focused in North and South America. Work where you’re strongest — we just want the best.