Principal Software Engineer

Secure Every Identity, from AI to Human

Identity is the key to unlocking the potential of AI. Okta secures AI by building the trusted, neutral infrastructure that enables organizations to safely embrace this new era. This work requires a relentless drive to solve complex challenges with real-world stakes. We are looking for builders and owners who operate with speed and urgency and execute with excellence.

This is an opportunity to do career-defining work. We're all in on this mission. If you are too, let's talk.

Secure Every Identity, from AI to Human

Identity is the key to unlocking the potential of AI. Okta secures AI by building the trusted, neutral infrastructure that enables organizations to safely embrace this new era. This work requires a relentless drive to solve complex challenges with real-world stakes. We are looking for builders and owners who operate with speed and urgency and execute with excellence.

This is an opportunity to do career-defining work. We're all in on this mission. If you are too, let's talk.

Okta Identity Governance (OIG) organization is looking for a Principal Engineer to join our team — OIG is Okta’s Identity Governance and Administration solution that is directly responsible for one of the most critical and visible workflows in enterprise identity: how employees request, approve, and gain access to the resources they need. 

Opportunity

As a Principal Engineer on the OIG team, you will be involved into development, design, and maintenance of our product to serve enterprise customers at scale. You will involve the architecture and evolution of our product features — spanning the across different access governance personas — and work collaboratively across engineering, product, and design to deliver features that are secure, scalable, and delightful to use.

This is a role for someone who thinks in systems, leads with craft, and is energized by the challenge of building enterprise-grade software that millions of users depend on.

This is a rare opportunity to join a team where your technical decisions will directly shape how thousands of enterprises manage access governance at scale, where the technical challenges are genuinely hard, and where the work you ship will be seen and felt by real users every day.

Job Duties And Responsibilities

• Take end-to-end ownership of feature areas — from technical design through implementation, testing, deployment, and post-launch monitoring
• Design, build, and ship high-quality, production-ready features across the OIG system, with a focus on correctness, reliability, and performance
• Quickly deliver high-quality bug fixes and handle customer-reported issues
• Write clean, well-tested, maintainable code and hold yourself and teammates to a high bar for engineering quality
• Partner with our Product Development, QA, and Site Reliability Engineering teams for scoping the development and deployment work

Required Knowledge, Skills, And Abilities

• 8+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 3+ years in a senior or staff-level technical leadership role
• Proven track record of architecting and delivering large-scale, distributed systems in production environments serving enterprise customers
• Deep expertise in microservices, event-driven architectures, APIs, and data modeling at scale
• Strong proficiency in one or more of: Java, Kotlin, Go , or equivalent JVM/cloud-native languages used in Okta's backend stack
• Demonstrated ability to influence without authority — driving technical alignment across multiple teams and stakeholders
• Experience designing systems that meet enterprise reliability, scalability, and security requirements (think: multi-tenancy, high availability, audit logging, RBAC/ABAC)
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to make complex technical topics accessible to both engineers and non-engineers

Preferred if you have experience in any of the following!

• Experience building identity, access management, or governance (IAM/IGA) products or platforms
• Familiarity with workflow engines or approval/routing systems (e.g., finite state machines, BPM-style systems)
• Experience with enterprise SaaS platforms serving large, complex customer organizations
• Hands-on experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and modern observability tooling

Education  

• B.S. Computer Science or equivalent

 

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Below is the annual base salary range for candidates located in California (excluding San Francisco Bay Area), Colorado, Illinois, New York and Washington. 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: .   

The annual base salary range for this position for candidates located in California (excluding San Francisco Bay Area), Colorado, Illinois, New York, and Washington is between:

$184,000—$276,000 USD

The Okta Experience

We are intentional about connection. Our global community, spanning over 20 offices worldwide, is united by a drive to innovate. Your journey begins with an immersive, in-person onboarding experience designed to accelerate your impact and connect you to our mission and team from day one.

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.