Staff Developer, Authentication Enablement

Staff Developer, Authentication Enablement

1Password is experiencing rapid growth, surpassing $400M in ARR and earning a spot on the Forbes Cloud 100 for four consecutive years. We are a market leader in enterprise password management and pioneers in Extended Access Management, focusing on human-centric security to unleash employee productivity without compromising security. Over 180,000 businesses globally trust 1Password to secure their teams.

Role Overview

We are seeking a Staff Developer to join our Authentication Enablement Platform team. This role is crucial for building a resilient and secure authentication backend platform. You will report to the Authentication Enablement Platform engineering team and be responsible for the ongoing migration of 1Password’s backend authentication service from a monolith to a standalone service. Beyond migration, you will mentor senior and intermediate developers and shape the future architecture of our authentication services. The role involves working with a Golang backend in a GitOps-driven Kubernetes environment, leveraging Kafka, Debezium, and MySQL. Deep technical expertise in distributed systems and strong collaboration skills with multiple internal engineering teams are essential. Your work will directly enhance the reliability and seamless authentication experience for 1Password customers.

What We’re Looking For

• Extensive Backend Experience: 8+ years in backend development at SaaS companies, with a proven track record of building and maintaining production systems for large user bases.
• Go Programming Expertise: Deep proficiency in Go, with hands-on experience developing API-first backend technologies.
• Authentication and IAM Knowledge: Experience with authentication systems, Identity and Access Management (IAM).
• Service-Oriented Architecture: Hands-on experience with SOA, actively participating in breaking down monolithic applications into distributed services and understanding the associated trade-offs and operational complexities.
• Production API Development: Deep familiarity with HTTP protocols, RESTful design principles, and building reliable APIs for developers, services, and users. Understanding of versioning, backward compatibility, and API evolution strategies.
• On-Call and Incident Response: Experience with on-call responsibilities and production incident response, comfortable debugging complex distributed systems and implementing preventive measures.
• Systems Thinking: Ability to see the big picture while managing implementation details, breaking down large, ambiguous projects into manageable work streams.
• Strong Collaboration: Experience working closely with multiple engineering teams as an internal service provider, gathering requirements, communicating technical trade-offs, and delivering solutions.

Bonus Points For

• Envoy Proxy Familiarity: Experience with configuration, filters, and extending functionality through custom plugins or extensions.
• Security Company Experience: Understanding of security-focused development practices, threat modeling, and building systems that handle sensitive data.
• Platform Engineering: Previous experience building internal developer platforms or infrastructure services that other engineering teams depend on.

What You Can Expect

• Lead the development and maintenance of our backend authentication service.
• Drive complex migration projects, including careful planning, rollback strategies, and coordination.
• Collaborate extensively with internal engineering teams to understand platform needs and ensure successful adoption.
• Participate in on-call rotations, responding to incidents and implementing improvements to maintain high availability.
• Mentor engineers on platform best practices, Go development, and distributed systems.
• Shape technical direction by evaluating new technologies and proposing architectural improvements.
• Build monitoring and observability into platform services for reliability and performance visibility.
• Hands-on Kubernetes experience with container orchestration, custom resources, and operators.

Compensation

This is a remote opportunity within Canada and the US. For USA-based roles, the annual base salary ranges from $190,000 USD to $258,000 USD. For Canada-based roles, the annual base salary ranges from $172,000 CAD to $232,000 CAD. Compensation includes immediate participation in benefits programs, generous paid time off, and an equity grant. 1Password ensures fair market value and internal equity commensurate with experience and skill set.

Our Culture

At 1Password, we value collaboration, transparent communication, receptiveness to feedback, and alignment with our core values: keep it simple, lead with honesty, and put people first. We seek individuals who are keen to take on challenging problems, thrive in a fast-paced environment, and are driven to make an impact. We value proven experts and those highly adaptable, curious, and results-oriented.

How We Work With AI

We are committed to leveraging cutting-edge AI technology to achieve our mission and encourage team members to actively learn AI best practices and apply AI in meaningful ways. Candidates are welcome to use AI tools responsibly during the application process.

Our Approach to Remote Work

1Password is a remote-first company, founded remotely in 2005. While remote, in-person travel for engagement (annual offsites, team meetings, events) is a part of almost all roles. Remote work means working from your home country.

What We Offer

• Health and wellbeing: Maternity and parental leave top-up programs, competitive health benefits, generous PTO policy.
• Growth and future: RSU program for most employees, retirement matching program, free 1Password account.
• Community: Paid volunteer days, peer-to-peer recognition, remote-first work environment.

Key skills/competency

• Backend Development
• Go Programming
• Distributed Systems
• Authentication Systems
• Identity and Access Management (IAM)
• Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)
• API Development (RESTful)
• Kubernetes
• Kafka
• MySQL