Staff Software Engineer, Confluent

• 10+ years of engineering experience, with 4+ years in security, IAM, or distributed systems
• Deep expertise in Kubernetes, workload identity, cloud IAM (AWS, GCP, Azure), and zero-trust architectures
• Strong understanding of authentication technologies: IAM, OAuth2, OIDC, policy engines, and modern zero-trust principles
• Proven track record leading multi-team technical initiatives at a Staff or Senior Staff level
• Strong knowledge of distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, container orchestration, and service mesh
• Excellent communication and stakeholder-influence skills across engineering and security domains

Desirable

• We are seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead the technical vision, architecture, and execution for Internal Access Management at Confluent
• This role is central to our trusted compute environment and requires deep expertise in distributed systems, cloud security, authentication, and policy-driven authorization frameworks
• As the domain owner, you will define how Confluent enforces least privilege, manages workload identity, governs access boundaries, and ensures secure, auditable authorization across all engineering systems
• You will partner with Security, Product, and Engineering to establish a cohesive end-to-end access posture
• Define and drive the long-term architecture and roadmap for Internal Access Management across Kubernetes and multi-cloud environments
• Architect and implement least privilege, just-in-time access, and zero-trust models across Confluent services
• Build and evolve scalable access-authorization workflows and lifecycle management systems using technologies such as SPIFFE/SPIRE, OPA, cloud IAM policies, workload identity, and internal enforcement engines
• Strengthen security boundaries through threat modeling, defense-in-depth practices, and comprehensive access-auditing capabilities
• Partner with cross-functional teams—including Platform, Kafka, Observability, Developer Productivity, Release Engineering, and SRE—to drive adoption of secure identity and access patterns
• Mentor senior engineers, elevate engineering standards, and influence architectural decisions across the organization
• Communicate complex technical decisions clearly and align stakeholders across engineering and security