Sr. Software Engineer - Platform Permissions

AppFolio Inc is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join the Permissions team in San Francisco, CA (onsite). In this role, you’ll design and operate an authorization platform that determines what users and systems can do across AppFolio products, with an emphasis on scalable access control, dependable permission-checking, and a structured migration away from legacy logic.

Role Summary

You will build the core authorization capabilities other teams rely on: roles, policies, and access checks. The work includes improving permission-check performance and reliability as usage grows, while also migrating older permissions logic onto a modern platform to reduce risk and complexity.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate the authorization platform including the roles, policies, and access checks that other teams build on top of
• Improve speed and reliability of permission checks by setting performance and availability goals that keep them fast as usage scales
• Create interfaces, libraries, and tooling so engineering teams can add access control to their features quickly and safely
• Lead migration of older, hard-to-maintain permissions logic onto the modern authorization platform
• Raise the technical bar through design reviews, pragmatic code review, and clear written proposals
• Mentor engineers and collaborate with product, security, and engineering partners to turn ambiguous access-control requirements into systems that are simple and well understood
• Own end-to-end quality for authorization changes with automated testing, controlled rollouts using feature flags, and observability so changes ship safely

Requirements

• 7+ years of professional software engineering experience building and operating production systems
• Fluency with AI coding agents, including experience with available agents, understanding common concepts, and a willingness to learn and use AI to build
• Depth in at least one of the following or the ability and desire to become effective quickly: Ruby on Rails, Go, or React with TypeScript
• Proven experience designing and owning non-trivial platform systems end-to-end
• Comfort working across the stack, including backend services and customer-facing interfaces, and picking up new languages and tools as needed
• Ability to diagnose and improve performance and reliability in high request volume systems
• Drive to identify root causes and reduce unnecessary complexity rather than patch symptoms
• Experience with authorization, authentication, or other security-sensitive systems is a plus
• Proactive, clear communication in writing and conversation, including explaining technical trade-offs to engineers and non-engineers
• Collaboration that includes giving and receiving feedback, helping teammates do their best work, and prioritizing team delivery over individual productivity

Technologies

• Ruby on Rails
• Go
• React
• TypeScript

Compensation & Benefits

• Base salary expected range: $138,400 - $190,300
• Actual base salary will be determined by factors including skills, education, experience, and more
• Base pay is part of a Total Rewards package and may not include additional benefits or bonuses/commissions based on role and employment type
• Regular full-time employees are eligible for benefits

Location

San Francisco, CA (onsite). Find out more about AppFolio locations by visiting their site. All late-stage candidates complete an in-person meeting with an AppFolian as part of the hiring process.