Senior Backend Engineer

Authentik Security (Headquarters: Remote)

Python Django Identity SSO Backend REST Open Source Back End Engineer Staff Engineer

**About Authentik Security:** Authentik Security is the company behind authentik, an open-source identity provider powering over 1 million unique installations worldwide. They offer flexible and versatile identity solutions that support a wide range of protocols, enabling businesses to replace services like Okta, Auth0, Entra ID, and Ping Identity. The company emphasizes security, transparency, and scalability, making it a popular choice for enterprises and startups alike.

**About The Role:** We are seeking a Senior Backend Engineer to join our team and play a key role in developing and maintaining the backend systems for our identity provider. You will work on complex, distributed systems that handle millions of authentication requests daily. Your expertise in backend technologies and identity protocols will be crucial in scaling our platform and ensuring its reliability and security.

**Key Responsibilities:**
- Design and implement backend features using Python and Django
- Collaborate with the team to define and execute on technical specifications for identity-related features
- Optimize and maintain existing backend services to handle increasing traffic and data volumes
- Ensure the security and compliance of authentication protocols
- Work closely with frontend and infrastructure teams to deliver a seamless user experience
- Mentor junior engineers and contribute to code reviews
- Stay at the forefront of technology advancements in identity management and backend systems

**Required Skills and Ideal Candidate:**
- Proven experience leading complex engineering efforts focused on backend systems and identity protocols
- Exceptional collaboration and communication skills, with a demonstrated ability to align stakeholders and lead cross-functional teams
- A track record of contributing to long-term technical roadmaps and making thoughtful system-level tradeoffs
- At least 8+ years of coding experience in languages like Python, with strong expertise in writing concurrent and distributed code
- Extensive experience designing and building distributed systems, leveraging concurrency primitives, and optimizing network performance
- Deep expertise in identity and access management systems, with familiarity across adjacent infrastructure domains
- Hands-on experience with cloud providers such as AWS, GCP, or Azure, and the ability to optimize cost, performance, and scalability
- A strong sense of ownership and the ability to balance short-term priorities with long-term strategic goals