What You'll Do
The Lead Systems Engineer is a senior technical expert responsible for the design, implementation, and ongoing optimization of the Okta identity and access management (IAM) platform. We are looking for a blend of strategic vision, deep technical skills, and hands-on engineering expertise to ensure the platform meets our security, compliance, and operational requirements. You will lead plans that enhance identity governance, allow secure access, and align IAM capabilities with our goals. You will be reporting to Director, Global Infrastructure.
What Your Responsibilities Will Be
Strategic Platform Ownership:
- Be the primary owner of the Okta platform, ensuring its understanding of organizational goals and long-term strategy.
- You will define and implement platform roadmaps, ensuring scalability, high availability, and disaster recovery (DR) processes.
- You will identify opportunities for innovation within the Okta platform to address evolving business and security needs.
Technical Architecture And Engineering
- You will lead the design and optimization of the Okta architecture, ensuring seamless integration with applications, cloud environments, and end-user devices.
- You will develop and enforce architectural standards, configuration baselines, and security policies for the Okta platform.
- You will create the implementation of advanced IAM features, such as conditional access, adaptive authentication, and just-in-time provisioning.
Governance And Compliance
- You will approve and oversee the implementation of platform use cases, ensuring compliance with security frameworks and regulatory requirements (e.g., SOX, GDPR).
- You will collaborate with Security and Compliance teams to develop governance policies for identity lifecycle management, privileged access, and role-based access controls.
- You will establish and monitor goals/ KPIs and service-level agreements (SLAs) for the Okta platform.
Financial Management
- Be the cost owner of the Okta platform, managing budget allocations, cost forecasting, and optimization strategies.
- You will identify cost-saving opportunities by streamlining licenses, eliminating redundancy, and improving operational efficiency.
Collaboration And Leadership
- You will partner with other teams, including application development, security operations, and IT infrastructure, to create seamless identity solutions.
- You will be the mentor and technical advisor to junior engineers and other team members, promoting knowledge-sharing and best practices.
- You will lead incident response and troubleshooting efforts for complex Okta-related issues, ensuring minimal impact on business operations.
Continuous Improvement
- You will stay updated on the latest IAM trends, technologies, and best practices, and assess their applicability to our organization.
- You will develop and implement training programs and documentation to enhance user adoption and understanding of Okta capabilities.
- You will perform periodic reviews of the Okta platform to identify and address performance, security, and operational gaps.
What You'll Need to be Successful
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field; advanced degree.
- 8+ years of experience in systems engineering, with at least 4 years focused on IAM technologies (Okta preferred).
- Expertise in designing and managing Okta integrations with SaaS applications, APIs, and directory services such as Active Directory and LDAP.
- Experience with authentication protocols, including SAML, OAuth, OpenID Connect, and SCIM.
- Experience with scripting and automation using PowerShell, Python, or similar tools.
- Proficient in troubleshooting complex system issues and implementing root-cause solutions.
Good To Have Skills
- Certifications such as Okta Certified Consultant, Okta Certified Administrator, or CISSP.
- Experience in multi-factor authentication (MFA), single sign-on (SSO), and zero-trust architecture.
- Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code (IaC) tools like Terraform
How We'll Take Care of You
Total Rewards
In addition to a great compensation package, paid time off, and paid parental leave, many Avalara employees are eligible for bonuses.
Health & Wellness
Benefits vary by location but generally include private medical, life, and disability insurance.
Inclusive culture and diversity
Avalara strongly supports diversity, equity, and inclusion, and is committed to integrating them into our business practices and our organizational culture. We also have a total of 8 employee-run resource groups, each with senior leadership and exec sponsorship.
Learn more about our benefits by region here: Avalara North America
What You Need To Know About Avalara
We’re Avalara. We’re defining the relationship between tax and tech. We’ve already built an industry-leading cloud compliance platform, processing nearly 40 billion customer API calls and over 5 million tax returns a year. Last year, we became a billion-dollar business
, and our tribe expanded by a cool thousand people - there’s nearly 5,000 of us now. Our growth is real, and we’re not slowing down - not until we’ve achieved our mission - to be part of every transaction in the world.
We’re bright, innovative and disruptive, like the orange we love to wear. It captures our quirky spirit and optimistic mindset. It shows off the culture we’ve designed, that empowers our people to win. Ownership and achievement go hand in hand here. We instill passion in our people through the trust we place in them. We’ve been different from day one. Join us, and your career will be too.
We’re An Equal Opportunity Employer
Supporting diversity and inclusion is a cornerstone of our company — we don’t want people to fit into our culture, but to enrich it. All qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, age, gender, national orientation, disability, sexual orientation, US Veteran status, or any other factor protected by law. If you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know.
