Staff Software Engineer - Federal

Okta is building defensive capabilities for environments that require reliability and trust. As part of the Defensive Cyber Engineering organization, this hybrid role in the Washington, DC area expands the team supporting Okta's Public Sector roadmap. You will help protect Okta and its customers by designing and operating security data and infrastructure platforms that enable detection and response.

What you’ll do

• Act as a security subject matter expert (SME) for solution engineering and architecture reviews, with focus on Detection and Response and/or enterprise security tooling.
• Lead technical work to evaluate, design, and implement new enterprise security systems and feature enhancements.
• Build, maintain, and enhance custom automation and cloud infrastructure using Terraform or similar tools to support team workflows and enforce security controls.
• Develop integrations with APIs and cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure) as well as security infrastructure to improve detection, response, and remediation.
• Write and maintain scripts and automations, with emphasis on Python, to streamline security operations.
• Establish monitoring and alerting for security posture, misconfigurations, and threats across endpoints, SaaS, and cloud workloads.
• Proactively identify and remediate security gaps, staying current on emerging threats, solutions, and industry tooling.

How you’ll contribute to the team

• Support Security Data Platform capabilities including infrastructure and tooling that enable Okta’s Detection and Response.
• Work on enterprise security tools and infrastructure that support XDR, DLP, and SSPM.

Required qualifications

• 8+ years of strong coding and scripting experience, focused on automation and custom tooling for security engineering teams.
• Python experience is required; proficiency in other languages (e.g., Bash, PowerShell, Go) is a plus.
• Experience developing and maintaining ETL/ELT pipelines for onboarding security data into Okta’s security data lake.
• Experience working with security teams to integrate log sources and ensure seamless data ingestion.
• Ability to build and maintain scalable, fault-tolerant data pipelines for security event data.
• Proven 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 and the ability to collaborate with technical staff, support teams, executive leadership, and external vendors.
• Current or prior 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) as required by U.S. Government contracts.
• May be subject to drug testing as required by U.S. Government contracts.

Technologies you’ll work with

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

Extra credit

• 2+ years building engineering solutions in highly regulated environments such as FedRAMP High, IL4, IL5, and/or IL6.
• 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 (e.g., policy-as-code, automated evidence gathering).

Location: Washington, DC (hybrid)
Salary range: USD 161,000 - 221,000 per year
Experience: 8+ years