Staff Security Engineer

Summary

We are the next-generation digital identity wallet that simplifies how individuals securely prove their identity online. Consumers can verify their identity with us once and seamlessly log in across websites without needing to create a new login and re-verify. Over 140 million users
experience streamlined login and identity verification with us at 20 federal agencies and 44 state agencies

General Information

Onsite Location: Mountain View, CA OR McLean, VA (Onsite 5 days per week)

We are seeking a Staff Software Engineer to join the Wallet – Identity Proofing team. This team owns the identity proofing flows that millions of members rely on every day — from secure login and multi-factor authentication to passkeys, biometrics, and the end-to-end member experiences that establish trust and unlock access to government, healthcare, and commercial services.

As a Staff Engineer, you will be a technical anchor for one of our most critical and
high-scale engineering domains. You will drive architecture decisions, lead complex cross-team initiatives, and raise the bar for engineering quality, security, and reliability. You’ll collaborate closely with product, security, and platform teams to shape the next generation of authentication and identity proofing at ID.me.

Key Responsibilities

• Drive Identity Proofing Excellence: Lead the technical design of end-to-end member-facing verification flows, including document-based identity proofing, face match, supervised verification, and trusted referee experiences — ensuring they meet NIST 800-63-3 IAL2/AAL2 standards with minimal friction.

• Technical Leadership & Mentorship: Serve as a technical anchor for the team — setting the standard for code quality, system design, and engineering best practices. Mentor senior and mid-level engineers through code reviews, architectural guidance, and pairing.

• Cross-Team Collaboration: Partner with Security, Platform, Identity Graph, Product, and Compliance teams to deliver cohesive features and integrations.

• Drive alignment on shared architectural decisions and multi-team initiatives that
  span authentication and identity proofing.

• Reliability, Performance & Security: Own the availability and performance of authentication services at scale. Lead initiatives around observability, alert hygiene, capacity planning, and incident response for high-traffic, high-sensitivity
  systems.

• Compliance & Data Integrity: Champion compliance initiatives, including data
  retention, compromised credential detection, biometric data governance, and
  privacy-preserving design patterns. Ensure authentication systems meet evolving
  legal and regulatory requirements.

• Roadmap Influence: Provide technical input into team roadmap planning.

• Identify engineering investments that improve developer velocity, system resilience, and member experience — and advocate for them with engineering leadership and product.

Requirements

Required Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience building and operating high-availability production services.

• 3+ years of experience operating distributed systems at scale, such as caching or async processing, and other cloud-native infrastructure (GCP preferred).

• 1+ years of experience with AI-assisted development tooling such as Claude
  Code, Cursor, or equivalent.

Preferred Skills

• Deep knowledge of identity proofing and credentialing standards, including NIST
  800-63-3 (IAL2/AAL2), Kantara Initiative requirements, or equivalent federal/state
  compliance frameworks.

• A commitment to fostering an AI-first engineering culture that maximizes team
  quality and velocity.

• Proven ability to lead complex, cross-team technical initiatives from definition through delivery with minimal oversight.

• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with experience influencing technical direction across engineering, product, and security stakeholders.

• Experience with modern frontend Frameworks like React, and strong backend
  engineering fundamentals in one or more languages such as Ruby, Java, Go, or Python, with a track record of building secure, scalable APIs and services.

• Hands-on experience with modern frontend technologies including TypeScript, React, Next.js, Node.js, and build tooling (Vite, Webpack, Babel, ESLint);

• Proficient in testing frameworks (Jest, Playwright, Testing Library), styling
  (Tailwind CSS, Sass), and building reusable component libraries with Storybook.

• Experience with event-driven architectures, database performance optimization,
  and caching strategies for high-throughput identity systems.

• Familiarity with cloud data compliance frameworks including biometric data
  retention regulations, PII handling, and audit logging requirements.

• Experience working in regulated industries such as government, healthcare, or
  financial services.

• Track record of improving engineering culture through documentation, technical
  standards, and developer experience improvements.