Principal Forward Deployed Engineer
The principal FDE defines reference architectures for agent identity, leads complex customer deployments, and shapes product direction through field expertise. The role requires 10+ years of production software experience, deep identity and distributed-systems knowledge, hands-on AI security expertise, and strong customer-facing authority.
About the job
Responsibilities
- Own the reference architecture for canonical agent identity, delegation, audit, and kill-switch patterns.
- Lead the most strategic, regulated, and technically novel deployments.
- Review FDE architectures, coach senior customer engineers and the team, and raise the technical bar.
- Shape the product roadmap by synthesizing patterns across customer accounts.
- Brief CISO, CIO, and Chief AI Officer audiences and represent Okta as a technical authority.
- Resolve complex technical and political situations across accounts.
- Define standards for evaluations and observability, including authorization latency, scope sprawl, delegation anomalies, audit completeness, and kill-switch verification.
- Turn recurring field work into reusable modules, internal tooling, and enablement.
Requirements
- 10+ years shipping production software, with deep distributed systems and identity experience.
- Hands-on expertise with OAuth 2.0, OIDC, SAML, SCIM, RFC 8693 token exchange, act claims, CIMD, DCR, and DPoP.
- Deep fluency in the OWASP Top 10 for Agentic Applications, NIST AI RMF, MITRE ATLAS, MCP, A2A, ISO/IEC 42001, and the EU AI Act.
- Experience applying security and identity practices in HIPAA, FedRAMP, and SOC 2 environments.
- Expertise in fine-grained authorization using ReBAC, ABAC, and policy engines such as OPA, Cedar, or OpenFGA.
- Production integrations across major agent platforms and MCP, with daily AI-native development.
- Track record of setting technical direction across multiple teams or accounts and mentoring senior engineers.
- Credibility with CISOs and principal engineers, from the IDE to the boardroom.
- High agency and a founder’s mindset applied to building a function.
- Ability to travel occasionally, up to 35%.
Compensation and Benefits
- United Kingdom annual on-target compensation: £114,000–£172,000 GBP.
- Equity, where applicable.
- Comprehensive healthcare coverage and financial benefits.
- Paid time off and parental leave in accordance with applicable plans and policies.
Skills
Distributed Systems, Identity Management, Oauth 2.0, Openid Connect, SAML, SCIM, Mcp, Rebac, Abac, Opa, Cedar, Openfga, Ai Security, Nist Ai Rmf, Mitre Atlas
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