Staff Backend Engineer - IAM
Coupang · Bengaluru · 3+ yrs experience · Posted 2026-07-18
Tech stack: AWS, Azure, GCP, Java, Kubernetes, Python, REST API, Backend
Apply on the company site · Get a referral for this role
Coupang salary & ratings · Coupang interview process · More live openings
About the role
Responsibilities:
- We are looking for an experienced Staff Engineer to lead backend engineering efforts specifically focused on identity and access management (IAM) for our next-generation AI cloud platform.
- Coupang is building a platform designed to power AI workloads at scale.
- As part of this multi-year initiative, the Identity team is responsible for managing user and machine identities, authentication, authorization, and secure service-to-service communication across the platform.
- This role will drive the development of foundational identity services that enable secure, scalable cloud infrastructure, handling hundreds of thousands of authentication events daily with rapidly growing scale.
- You will have the opportunity to:
- Build and scale identity and authentication systems for a next-generation AI platform
- Work on cutting-edge IAM challenges including OAuth2, OIDC, service-to-service authentication, and machine identity
- Operate and scale systems handling 500K+ authentication requests daily
- Collaborate across global teams in India, US, and other regions
- Lead and grow a high-performing backend engineering team focused on identity and access management
- Drive development of core IAM capabilities including authentication, authorization, and identity lifecycle management
- Design and build scalable systems for user identity and machine identity management within a cloud environment
- Work on modern authentication protocols such as OAuth2, OIDC, and SAML, and implement secure service-to-service authentication
- Build and evolve authorization frameworks leveraging RBAC/ABAC models and policy engines (e.g., OPA)
- Partner with cross-functional teams to deliver secure, scalable infrastructure for AI workloads
- Drive technical design, execution planning, and delivery of complex distributed systems
- Ensure reliability, scalability, and security of identity systems as the platform scales rapidly
- Mentor engineers and foster a strong engineering culture focused on ownership and excellence
Qualifications:
- 10–12 years of backend software engineering experience with 3+ years in engineering management
- Strong experience in backend development using Java or Python with REST API design
- Hands-on experience with authentication and authorization technologies (OAuth2, OIDC, SAML)
- Solid understanding of identity systems including user identity and machine/workload identity
- Experience with service-to-service authentication and distributed system security
- Strong problem-solving and execution skills with ability to break down complex systems
- Experience working in cloud environments (AWS preferred)
- Strong stakeholder management and communication skills
- Experience building IAM systems in cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP)
- Familiarity with PKI, certificate lifecycle management, and secure identity frameworks
- Experience with authorization frameworks (RBAC, ABAC, OPA)
- Exposure to Kubernetes and cloud-native architectures
- Experience working on large-scale distributed systems handling high request volumes
- Background in platform engineering or infrastructure teams
- Hybrid / Onsite / Remote working
Qualifications
- 10–12 years of backend software engineering experience with 3+ years in engineering management
- Strong experience in backend development using Java or Python with REST API design
- Hands-on experience with authentication and authorization technologies (OAuth2, OIDC, SAML)
- Solid understanding of identity systems including user identity and machine/workload identity
- Experience with service-to-service authentication and distributed system security
- Strong problem-solving and execution skills with ability to break down complex systems
- Experience working in cloud environments (AWS preferred)
- Strong stakeholder management and communication skills
- Experience building IAM systems in cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP)
- Familiarity with PKI, certificate lifecycle management, and secure identity frameworks
- Experience with authorization frameworks (RBAC, ABAC, OPA)
- Exposure to Kubernetes and cloud-native architectures
- Experience working on large-scale distributed systems handling high request volumes
- Background in platform engineering or infrastructure teams
- Hybrid / Onsite / Remote working
Responsibilities
- We are looking for an experienced Staff Engineer to lead backend engineering efforts specifically focused on identity and access management (IAM) for our next-generation AI cloud platform.
- Coupang is building a platform designed to power AI workloads at scale.
- As part of this multi-year initiative, the Identity team is responsible for managing user and machine identities, authentication, authorization, and secure service-to-service communication across the platform.
- This role will drive the development of foundational identity services that enable secure, scalable cloud infrastructure, handling hundreds of thousands of authentication events daily with rapidly growing scale.
- You will have the opportunity to:
- Build and scale identity and authentication systems for a next-generation AI platform
- Work on cutting-edge IAM challenges including OAuth2, OIDC, service-to-service authentication, and machine identity
- Operate and scale systems handling 500K+ authentication requests daily
- Collaborate across global teams in India, US, and other regions
- Lead and grow a high-performing backend engineering team focused on identity and access management
- Drive development of core IAM capabilities including authentication, authorization, and identity lifecycle management
- Design and build scalable systems for user identity and machine identity management within a cloud environment
- Work on modern authentication protocols such as OAuth2, OIDC, and SAML, and implement secure service-to-service authentication
- Build and evolve authorization frameworks leveraging RBAC/ABAC models and policy engines (e.g., OPA)
- Partner with cross-functional teams to deliver secure, scalable infrastructure for AI workloads
- Drive technical design, execution planning, and delivery of complex distributed systems
- Ensure reliability, scalability, and security of identity systems as the platform scales rapidly
- Mentor engineers and foster a strong engineering culture focused on ownership and excellence