Shape the future of enterprise identity by engineering, securing, and automating mission-critical workforce identity services that enable secure access across the enterprise. As a senior member of the Identity Platform team, you will drive the design, implementation, operation, and continuous improvement of Okta capabilities that improve security, resiliency, reliability, and user experience.
This role combines identity architecture, platform engineering, automation, operational excellence, and technical leadership. You will partner with application teams, infrastructure engineers, cybersecurity, and cloud teams to deliver scalable identity solutions while reducing operational risk and improving service maturity.
The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in Okta, modern authentication protocols, identity lifecycle management, cloud security engineering, automation, and incident response, along with a passion for mentoring others and driving continuous improvement.
Core Responsibilities:
Platform Engineering & Identity Solutions
- Design, implement, and maintain enterprise-scale identity solutions leveraging Okta Workforce Identity capabilities.
- Lead application onboarding initiatives including SAML, OIDC/OAuth, SCIM provisioning, federation, lifecycle management, and authentication integrations.
- Develop scalable identity architectures that improve security, operational efficiency, and end-user experience.
- Partner with cloud and platform engineering teams to integrate identity controls across enterprise platforms and cloud environments.
Automation & Engineering Excellence
- Design and implement automation solutions using APIs, scripting, workflows, infrastructure-as-code, and CI/CD pipelines to reduce manual effort and improve service delivery.
- Automate operational processes, platform governance controls, application onboarding activities, and compliance reporting.
- Drive platform engineering best practices including Git-based deployment models, testing strategies, release management, and configuration standardization.
- Continuously evaluate emerging technologies and capabilities to improve scalability, reliability, security, and operational effectiveness.
Operational Reliability & Resiliency
- Own platform resiliency initiatives include disaster recovery planning, service continuity testing, monitoring, observability, and operational readiness reviews.
- Participate in production support and critical incident response while driving permanent engineering solutions that eliminate recurring operational issues.
- Lead root cause analysis activities and implement preventative controls to improve platform stability.
- Establish and maintain monitoring, alerting, and operational dashboards that provide visibility into platform health and key performance indicators.
Security, Governance & Compliance
- Implement and maintain secure authentication, authorization, and access management controls.
- Support audit readiness through development of controls, documentation, evidence collection processes, and governance standards.
- Assess and mitigate security risks associated with identity systems, integrations, and cloud-based services.
- Drive initiatives that enhance platform security posture through continuous improvement, vulnerability remediation, policy modernization, and threat detection capabilities.
Technical Leadership
- Serve as a technical leader and trusted advisor for workforce identity services and authentication technologies.
- Influence architecture decisions, engineering standards, and operational best practices across teams.
- Mentor engineers and support knowledge-sharing initiatives that reduce key-person dependency and improve organizational resiliency.
- Collaborate with internal stakeholders, vendors, and cross-functional teams to deliver strategic identity initiatives.
Operational Leadership
- Experience managing major incidents, root cause analysis, and operational readiness activities.
- Ability to analyze complex authentication, authorization, and provisioning issues across multiple integrated systems.
- Strong stakeholder communication and cross-functional collaboration skills.
- Experience developing technical documentation, standards, procedures, and operational runbooks.
Business Outcomes
- Drive measurable improvements in:
- Faster application onboarding
- Platform reliability and availability
- Incident response effectiveness
- Automation adoption
- Audit readiness
- Reduction of operational risk
- Service scalability and engineering efficiency
Required Qualifications
- Minimum 7 years of broad experience working on large-scale systems or services, Cloud Security Engineering, Identity Platform Engineering, Identity and Access Management or related disciplines.
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Cybersecurity, Engineering, or equivalent experience.
- Extensive hands-on experience with Okta Workforce Identity Cloud.
- At least 2 current Okta certifications (e.g., Okta Certified Professional, Administrator, Consultant, Developer)
Technical Skills
Demonstrated expertise in:
- SAML 2.0
- OIDC / OAuth 2.0
- SCIM Provisioning
- Okta APIs
- MFA and Adaptive Authentication
- FastPass
- Device Assurance
- Sign-On Policies/Patterns
- FIDO2 and Okta Verify Implementations
- Identity Lifecycle Management
- Federation Design
- Application Onboarding and Troubleshooting
- Directory Services
Strong experience with:
- CI/CD Pipelines
- GitHub-based Development
- Infrastructure as Code (Terraform or OpenTofu)
- Python, PowerShell, or similar scripting languages
- AWS Services (Lambda, Secrets Manager, CloudWatch)
- REST APIs
- Okta Workflows
- Splunk and Log Analysis
- Change Management and Production Support
Nice to Have:
Identity Innovation
- Identity Threat Protection
- Behavior Detection and Risk Signals
- Okta AI and Agentic AI capabilities
Platform Engineering
- Automation Framework Development
- Event-Driven Architectures
Governance & Recovery
- Identity Governance Concepts
- Disaster Recovery Planning
- Backup and Recovery Solutions
- Audit and Compliance Frameworks
Cloud & Security
- AWS, GCP and Azure security controls
- Secrets management
- PKI and certificate management
- Security monitoring and observability platforms
What Success Looks Like
In this role, success means delivering reliable, secure, and scalable identity services that:
- Accelerate application onboarding.
- Improve platform automation and operational efficiency.
- Strengthen the organization's security posture.
- Increase platform resiliency and reliability.
- Enhance audit readiness and regulatory compliance.
- Reduce operational and key-person risk.
- Enable exceptional workforce identity experiences across the enterprise.
Special Factors
Sponsorship
Vanguard is not offering visa sponsorship for this position.About Vanguard
At Vanguard, we don't just have a mission—we're on a mission.
To work for the long-term financial wellbeing of our clients. To lead through product and services that transform our clients' lives. To learn and develop our skills as individuals and as a team. From Malvern to Melbourne, our mission drives us forward and inspires us to be our best.
How We Work
Vanguard has implemented a hybrid working model for the majority of our crew members, designed to capture the benefits of enhanced flexibility while enabling in-person learning, collaboration, and connection. We believe our mission-driven and highly collaborative culture is a critical enabler to support long-term client outcomes and enrich the employee experience.
Skills Required
- Minimum 7 years experience in Cloud Security Engineering, Identity Platform Engineering, IAM, or related disciplines
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, IT, Cybersecurity, Engineering, or equivalent experience
- Extensive hands-on experience with Okta Workforce Identity Cloud
- At least 2 current Okta certifications (e.g., Okta Certified Professional, Administrator, Consultant, Developer)
- Expertise with SAML 2.0
- Expertise with OIDC / OAuth 2.0
- Experience implementing SCIM provisioning and federation
- Experience using Okta APIs and Okta Workflows
- Experience with MFA, Adaptive Authentication, FastPass, Device Assurance, FIDO2, and Okta Verify implementations
- Strong experience with CI/CD pipelines and GitHub-based development
- Infrastructure as Code experience (Terraform or OpenTofu)
- Scripting experience (Python, PowerShell, or similar)
- Experience with AWS services (Lambda, Secrets Manager, CloudWatch)
- Experience with REST APIs and application onboarding/troubleshooting
- Experience with Splunk and log analysis
- Experience in production support, incident response, root cause analysis, and change management
- Knowledge of directory services and identity lifecycle management
- Experience with audit readiness, governance controls, and compliance evidence collection
- Experience with platform resiliency, disaster recovery planning, and monitoring/observability
- Experience mentoring engineers and providing technical leadership for identity services
- Identity Threat Protection, behavior detection, Okta AI, event-driven architectures, and PKI/certificate management
- Experience with GCP/Azure security controls and additional cloud security tooling
Vanguard Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Vanguard and has not been reviewed or approved by Vanguard.
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Retirement Support — Retirement support appears unusually strong through a 401(k) design that includes a match plus an additional employer contribution, which can materially lift long-term total rewards. HSA seeding and an enhanced employer match further strengthen the savings-and-benefits value of the package.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — Wellbeing and lifestyle support is reinforced by a sizable annual FlexFund stipend that can be applied across many day-to-day categories such as fitness, childcare, and other personal expenses. On-site or virtual clinics and fitness options add practical health and wellness convenience.
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Affordable Benefits — Healthcare and related benefits are positioned as comparatively affordable via heavily subsidized medical plans and broad coverage options. This affordability can offset moderate base pay for employees who place higher value on out-of-pocket cost reductions.
Vanguard Insights
What We Do
We are a community of 30 million who think – and feel – differently about investing. Together, we’re changing the way the world invests. Since our founding in 1975, helping our investors achieve their goals is our sole reason for existence. With no other parties to answer to and therefore no conflicting loyalties, we make every decision—like keeping investing costs as low as possible—with only your needs in mind. Vanguard is one of the world's largest investment companies, offering a large selection of high-quality low-cost mutual funds, ETFs, advice, and related services. Individual and institutional investors, financial professionals, and plan sponsors can benefit from the size, stability, and experience Vanguard offers. As of April 30, 2019, we managed more than $5.6 trillion in global assets. In addition, we have 189 funds in the United States and 225 funds in global markets. For Commenting Guidelines & Important information, visit here: http://vanguard.com/linkedin Vanguard Marketing Corporation, Distributor.
