This role demands deep technical expertise in backend architecture and the ability to influence decisions across the team and adjacent engineering groups. You will thrive in a fast-paced, zero-to-one environment, cutting through ambiguity to drive product-market fit.

In practice, that means using AI tools for architectural reasoning and design review, generating and validating test coverage, accelerating code review cycles, and helping engineers build judgment about when AI output is trustworthy and when it isn't.

You'll define what 'good' looks like here and bring the team along. You'll also be a force multiplier - mentoring senior engineers, raising the technical bar through architecture.

Proactively shape the technical strategy and architecture of a greenfield VDC identity ecosystem, partnering with principal engineers to ensure decisions prioritize open standards and interoperability.

Own architectural decisions in a fast-moving environment - balancing rapid delivery with long-term scalability, security, and platform integrity.

Identify and mitigate technical risks before they become blockers; escalate dependencies early and widely.

Own production health for your systems - incident response, root cause identification, and driving operational improvement projects (monitoring coverage, alert reduction, runbook quality).

Champion high engineering standards across the team, including rigorous code reviews, comprehensive unit/functional testing, and architectural review processes to ensure the platform is tamper-proof.

Drive continual evolution in the adoption of AI-native development practices, helping the team rethink how we design, review, and ship software with AI as a core part of the workflow.

Proactively identify and prioritize tech debt; drive improvements in areas beyond feature work - CI/CD, observability, documentation, reliability, and support processes.

Partner with Product and Design to understand and own the desired customer outcome, not just the technical deliverable.

Actively invest in the growth of peer engineers, taking responsibility for raising the technical bar of the team as a whole.

Operates well beyond basic AI tool usage - understands how to apply AI meaningfully across the full software development lifecycle, can evaluate and adopt new AI tooling with good judgment, and is able to establish practices and bring a team along.

Proven experience defining scalable backend architectures and integrating complex APIs with modern web technologies - including the ability to make and defend architectural decisions with lasting org-wide impact.

Solid understanding of web authentication and authorization fundamentals - how auth flows work, token-based access (JWT, OAuth), and best practices for securing sensitive user data.

Deep expertise in building highly reliable, secure, enterprise-grade software using Java or Node.js.

Proficiency in JavaScript or TypeScript, with the ability to navigate and contribute to the frontend to unblock feature development.

Strong understanding of cloud architecture principles, with experience designing and operating large-scale services on AWS.

Hands-on experience with identity protocols such as OIDC4VP, OIDC4VCI, OAuth, and the W3C Verifiable Credentials data model.

Prior experience leading a team of engineers through a meaningful shift in ways of working - whether around AI adoption, developer tooling, or engineering culture change.

Practical knowledge of cryptography: public/private key infrastructure (PKI), digital signatures, and hashing, particularly in the context of Verifiable Credentials or DIDs.

Experience building or maintaining publicly released SDKs used by external developers.

Experience in one of the following areas is preferred: developing Identity and Access Management (IAM) tooling, working with blockchain technology, or contributing to a 'zero-to-one' startup-like team.

The annual base salary range for this position for candidates located in Canada is between $160,000-$220,000 CAD.

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This role blends hands-on software development, technical consulting, and customer success: ideal for someone who thrives at the intersection of technology and mission-driven impact.

Responsibilities:

• Design, build, and deploy full-stack solutions for state governments and public sector partners.
• Collaborate with customer delivery leads, engineers, and UX designers to ensure successful deployments.
• Translate customer requirements into technical architectures and production-ready systems.
• Serve as a trusted technical advisor for partners adopting open identity standards and privacy best practices.
• Build backend services and full-stack web or mobile apps that meet public sector security, privacy, and accessibility standards.
• Contribute to Rust codebases that run across backend, mobile, and browser environments.
• Manage customer deployments and provide post-launch technical support.

Qualifications:

• 2+ years of experience building backend systems in statically typed languages (Rust, Go, C#, or Java).
• Strong background in modern web frontends (React, TypeScript, or similar) with an eye for accessibility and security.
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional engineering efforts and deliver production-grade systems.
• Strong appreciation for open-source software, standards-based design, and community-driven development.
• Hands-on experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and DevOps practices.
• Excellent communication skills and comfort working directly with customers or stakeholders.
• Based in the U.S., excited to collaborate with state government partners.

Nice to Have:

• Experience with digital identity, cryptography, data privacy, or blockchain technologies (e.g., Verifiable Credentials, Decentralized Identifiers, OAuth, OpenID Connect).
• Familiarity with PostgreSQL, GraphQL, or RESTful API design and development.
• Understanding of CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code, and automation using Terraform, or similar tools.
• Exposure to mobile app development (React Native, Flutter, or similar frameworks).
• Experience in security engineering, access control, federated identity, or PKI systems.
• Prior work in public sector, government technology, or other high-compliance environments.
• Interest in usability, accessibility (WCAG, Section 508), and inclusive product design.
• Contributions to open-source projects or participation in digital identity standards bodies (W3C, DIF, IETF) is a plus.

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