Principal Software Engineer

About the team

As part of our vision to Free Everyone to Safely Connect to Technology, Okta is investing in a new team to articulate, drive and deliver the next generation API graph for Identity. This new team will think about structuring the API Graph with an eye towards SaaS Partner developers, however, it should not alienate customer developers building in-house automation.  This team will think holistically about the nouns and verbs that should be exposed via Okta’s API along with canonical request/response shapes of each resource across all WIC products.  Exposing the integrations graph will also be of importance.  SaaS products (both internal and external) will want to take advantage of Okta’s connections to downstream integrations. 

About the Role

Do you eat and breathe API's? Do you dream in JSON? Does the idea of revolutionizing the Okta API to ease the way developers integrate with Okta? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then join a team that is rewriting the rules of identity management! This is your chance to build a product that will empower developers to build incredible integrations, streamline automation, and unleash the full potential of the Okta Platform.  As a Principal Engineer on the Graph API team, you'll collaborate with a diverse group of brilliant minds, each bringing their unique expertise to the table.

We're looking for someone who is not afraid to challenge the status quo, thrives in a fast-paced environment, and who takes pride in delivering software that exceeds expectations. If you're passionate about API's, driven to make a difference, and ready to embark on an epic adventure, we want you on our team!

Job Duties and Responsibilities:

• Create an intuitive, connected, and secure API Graph and downstream artifacts that go along with it (e.g. SDKs, Documentation, Consoles) that empower SaaS ISVs to build with Okta.
• Analyze/Refine Requirements with Product Management and other stakeholders by asking the right questions and driving clarity.
• Influence underlying platform teams on design aspects of canonical representations of data modeling and relationships and read/write patterns that are performant. 
• Have a high bar for security, test-driven development, design reviews and code reviews while harboring a sense of urgency.
• Define long-term observability and reliability metrics for the systems/features that they own. 

Required Skills, Attitude and Knowledge:

• Have 10+ years of software development experience.
• Proficient in at least one backend language while comfortable in more than one of the backend languages - Java, Typescript, Ruby, GoLang, C#, Python.
• Demonstrable knowledge of HTTP fundamentals with strong API Design principles and industry standards (e.g. OpenAPI Specification)
• Demonstrable knowledge of API access patterns and scaling them. Experience with distributed systems patterns including caching, asynchronous processing, API security, API gateways etc. 
• Have experience working with at least one of the database technologies - MySQL, Redis, or PostgreSQL.
• Experience working with at least one cloud-native system of scale (AWS, GCP, Azure)
• Track record of delivering work incrementally to get feedback and iterating over solutions. 
• Comfortable working on a fully-distributed, remote team. Bring the right attitude to the team: ownership, accountability, attention to detail, and customer focus.
• Excellent written communication skills, bringing structure to ambiguous concepts, and driving closure on them methodically using first principles.
• Experience leading complex API projects from inception to production.
• Possess or have interest in developing a strong product sense.

Bonus Points:

• Expertise in standard authentication and authorization protocols such as SAML, SCIM, OAuth and OIDC .
• Have built fault-tolerant & scalable integrations to third-party services using API integration patterns.
• Knowledge of API Testing tools and techniques

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