Staff Software Engineer - Federal

Okta is expanding its Defensive Cyber Engineering organization in the Washington, DC area. This Staff Software Engineer role supports Okta’s Public Sector roadmap by designing and delivering security solutions through data and infrastructure platforms built with software, data, and security engineering expertise.

Role Overview

As part of the Security Data Platform and Detection and Response enablement, you will implement and manage enterprise security systems and feature enhancements. The work includes building automation and cloud infrastructure, integrating security infrastructure and APIs, and establishing monitoring and alerting to improve detection, response, and remediation.

Responsibilities

• Act as a security subject matter expert (SME) for solution engineering and architecture reviews, particularly in the Detection and Response and/or enterprise security tooling space.
• Lead technical evaluation, design, and implementation of new enterprise security systems and enhancements.
• Build, maintain, and enhance custom automation and cloud infrastructure using Terraform or similar tooling to support team workflows and enforce security controls.
• Develop integrations with APIs, AWS, GCP, Azure, and security infrastructure to improve detection, response, and remediation.
• Write and maintain scripts and automations with an emphasis on Python to streamline security operations.
• Establish monitoring and alerting for security posture, misconfigurations, and threats across endpoints, SaaS, and cloud workloads.
• Identify and remediate security gaps proactively while staying current on emerging threats, solutions, and tooling across the industry.

Requirements

• 8+ years of strong coding and scripting experience focused on automation and custom tooling for security engineering teams.
• Python is required; experience with Bash, PowerShell, and/or Go is a plus.
• Experience developing and maintaining ETL/ELT pipelines for onboarding security data into Okta’s security data lake.
• Experience partnering with security teams to integrate log sources and ensure seamless data ingestion.
• Ability to build and maintain scalable, fault-tolerant data pipelines for processing security event data.
• Demonstrated ability to automate security controls and workflows with a cloud-first approach.
• Experience with Terraform and other infrastructure-as-code tools to orchestrate security infrastructure.
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines for security automation and drift management.
• Strong communication skills, including collaboration with technical staff, support teams, executive leadership, and external vendors.
• 2+ years of experience building engineering solutions within highly regulated environments such as FedRAMP High, IL4, IL5, and/or IL6 is a plus.
• Current or previous Secret, Top Secret (TS), or Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) clearance.
• Must be able to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance (Secret or Top Secret) to the extent required by U.S. Government contracts.
• The selected candidate may be subject to drug testing to the extent required by U.S. Government contracts.

Technologies

• Python, Bash, PowerShell, Go
• ETL/ELT, Terraform, CI/CD
• AWS, GCP, Azure

Team Context

• The Defensive Cyber Engineering organization safeguards Okta from threats and vulnerabilities that could disrupt the business or reduce customer trust.
• This team owns the Security Data Platform, infrastructure, and tooling enabling Okta’s Detection and Response capabilities.
• The organization also manages enterprise security tools and infrastructure that support XDR, DLP, and SSPМ capabilities.

Additional Information

Location: Washington, DC (hybrid). Compensation: USD 161,000 to 221,000 per year. Experience: 8+ years.

Extra Credit

• Experience with advanced identity management technologies (MFA, SAML, OAuth, OIDC, WebAuthn).
• Deep understanding of Okta’s ecosystem, including advanced configuration and integrations.
• Experience with continuous compliance solutions, such as policy-as-code and automated evidence gathering.