Get to know Okta
Okta is The World’s Identity Company. We free everyone to safely use any technology, anywhere, on any device or app. Our flexible and neutral products, Okta Platform and Auth0 Platform, provide secure access, authentication, and automation, placing identity at the core of business security and growth.
At Okta, we celebrate a variety of perspectives and experiences. We are not looking for someone who checks every single box - we’re looking for lifelong learners and people who can make us better with their unique experiences.
Join our team! We’re building a world where Identity belongs to you.
Okta is the leading independent identity partner, securely connecting the right people to the right technologies at the right time. With over 20,000 customers and a billion registered users, we provide the foundation for secure enterprise management and seamless user experiences. As a trusted U.S. Federal vendor, we maintain FedRAMP High and DoD IL4 compliance, and are on track to achieve DoD IL6 to support the government’s most critical and classified missions.
The Core Engineering TeamOur team builds the foundational shared infrastructure that powers the Okta Identity Cloud. We own mission-critical services—including distributed caching, configuration management, and asynchronous data pipelines—where multi-tenancy, massive scale, and "Always On" resiliency are the standard. We are a group of passionate engineers dedicated to resource optimization and architectural excellence.
The RoleWe are seeking a Staff Backend Engineer (TS/SCI) to join our high-stakes National Security team. Based in the Washington, D.C. area, with on-site customer travel, you will serve as a technical leader, delivering secure, air-gapped solutions for our federal partners.
Security Requirement:
- Must be able to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance (Secret or Top Secret) to the extent required by U.S. Government contracts.
- The selected candidate may be subject to drug testing to the extent required by U.S. Government contracts.
What You’ll Do
- Cloud & Air-Gapped Infrastructure: Design and deliver AWS-based projects using Terraform, Docker, and Redis, adapting them for secure federal air-gapped environments.
- Scalable Service Ownership: Operate and scale shared services and frameworks to support rapid business growth.
- Engineering Standards: Drive high-quality code through rigorous design reviews, code reviews, and automated unit/functional testing.
- System Reliability: Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize services to resolve performance bottlenecks and ensure high availability.
- Technical Leadership: Mentor junior engineers and collaborate with cross-functional teams (QA, Security, Product) to deliver secure, enterprise-grade solutions.
- Security Clearance: Active U.S. TS/SCI clearance.
- Compliance Expertise: Proven experience navigating Federal and DoD compliance frameworks, specifically FedRAMP and Impact Level 6 (IL6).
- Domain Authority: Deep expertise in architecting, deploying, and optimizing software within federal air-gapped environments.
- Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related technical field (Master’s degree preferred).
- Backend Development: 5+ years of professional experience in an object-oriented language (specifically Java). You should possess a mastery of backend service architecture, multithreading, garbage collection, and memory management.
- Orchestration & Cloud: 3+ years of experience developing and troubleshooting web services on Kubernetes. Hands-on experience with AWS EKS is highly preferred.
- Database Management: 3+ years of experience with MySQL or equivalent relational databases, including sophisticated database design and query performance tuning.
- API Design: Demonstrated success working with RESTful fundamentals; additional knowledge of gRPC is a significant plus.
- Modern Tech Stack: Proficiency with the Spring ecosystem (Spring Boot, Hibernate), Tomcat, Redis, and Docker.
- Security & Engineering: Strong foundational knowledge of network security (authentication/authorization) and a commitment to rigorous software engineering best practices.
Industry Experience: Prior experience supporting or building Enterprise SaaS platforms.
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Below is the annual base salary range for candidates located in San Francisco Bay Area. 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.
What you can look forward to as a Full-Time Okta employee!
- Amazing Benefits
- Making Social Impact
- Developing Talent and Fostering Connection + Community at Okta
Okta cultivates a dynamic work environment, providing the best tools, technology and benefits to empower our employees to work productively in a setting that best and uniquely suits their needs. Each organization is unique in the degree of flexibility and mobility in which they work so that all employees are enabled to be their most creative and successful versions of themselves, regardless of where they live. Find your place at Okta today! https://www.okta.com/company/careers/.
Some roles may require travel to one of our office locations for in-person onboarding.
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 please use this Form to request an accommodation.
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, please click here to view our full NYC AEDT Notice.
Okta is committed to complying with applicable data privacy and security laws and regulations. For more information, please see our Personnel and Job Candidate Privacy Notice at https://www.okta.com/legal/personnel-policy/.
Top Skills
What We Do
Okta is the leading independent identity provider. The Okta Identity Cloud enables organizations to securely connect the right people to the right technologies at the right time. With more than 7,000 pre-built integrations to applications and infrastructure providers, Okta provides simple and secure access to people and organizations everywhere, giving them the confidence to reach their full potential. More than 10,000 organizations, including JetBlue, Nordstrom, Siemens, Slack, T-Mobile, Takeda, Teach for America, and Twilio, trust Okta to help protect the identities of their workforces and customers.
