Principal Software Engineer

We are seeking a hands-on Principal Software Engineer to build PingOne Privilege, our cloud-native Zero Trust privileged access platform, and the AI security capabilities that protect how enterprises adopt agentic AI. This is a coding role - you will design, ship, and own production systems alongside the rest of the team.

Key Responsibilities:

• Build the Platform: Design and ship core services for PingOne Privilege, our cloud-native platform in Go - just-in-time access, credential-less authentication, and Zero Trust access to multi-cloud infrastructure (AWS, Azure, GCP) and on-prem resources.
• Agentic AI Security: Build our AI security capabilities hands-on - MCP gateways, AI agent identity and governance, and real-time guardrails that detect and block prompt injection and data exfiltration.
• Distributed Systems: Develop highly available, multi-region services on Kubernetes with durable workflow orchestration and distributed data stores, and own them through design, implementation, and production.
• Identity & Access Protocols: Implement deep integrations with identity protocols (OAuth2/OIDC, SAML, SCIM, certificate-based auth) and build secure proxy and gateway layers for SSH, RDP, Kubernetes, databases, and web applications.
• Technical Leadership: Raise the bar through code reviews and design reviews, mentor engineers by working alongside them, and set the example for high-quality, secure, maintainable code.

Qualifications:

• Experience: 10+ years of hands-on software engineering experience, with 4+ years at a Principal or Staff level building large-scale security or identity products - as an individual contributor who writes and ships production code daily.
• Security & Identity Expertise: Deep working knowledge of IAM/PAM - privileged access, secrets and key management, session brokering, least-privilege and Zero Trust architectures - with hands-on depth in OAuth2/OIDC and PKI.
• Tech Stack: Expert-level proficiency in Go (or strong systems-language background with willingness to work in Go), Cloud Native technologies (AWS/Azure/GCP, Kubernetes), and distributed data stores (Cassandra or similar NoSQL); experience with workflow engines (e.g., Temporal) a plus.
• AI Systems (preferred): Experience building or securing LLM-based systems - agent frameworks, MCP, model-based threat detection, or AI guardrails.
• Leadership: Influence through code and design, not title - proven ability to drive cross-team technical decisions while staying in the critical path of delivery.

Education: BS/MS in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience.