Staff Software Engineer - Credentials

Staff Software Engineer - Credentials

ID.me is the next-generation digital identity wallet that simplifies how individuals securely prove their identity online. Consumers can verify their identity with ID.me once and seamlessly login across websites without having to create a new login and verify their identity again. Over 152 million users experience streamlined login and identity verification with ID.me at 20 federal agencies, 45 state government agencies, and 70+ healthcare organizations. More than 600+ consumer brands use ID.me to verify communities and user segments to honor service and build more authentic relationships. ID.me's technology meets the federal standards for consumer authentication set by the Commerce Department and is approved as a NIST 800-63-3 IAL2 / AAL2 credential service provider by the Kantara Initiative. ID.me is committed to "No Identity Left Behind" to enable all people to have a secure digital identity.

Role Overview

ID.me is seeking a Staff Software Development Engineer – Credential API to design and build the foundation of our credentialing platform — the API that issues, retrieves, and manages validated credential bundles (e.g., verified passport, driver's license, validated domain, verified face) for both people and organizations.

As a key individual contributor, you'll architect and implement the services that underpin ID.me's next-generation identity trust layer. You'll work across identity, verification, and platform teams to deliver a secure, scalable, and high-performance API that enables the interoperability and integrity of digital credentials used by millions of users and trusted partners.

This position will be based full-time in our Mountain View, CA office.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and implement the Credential API and its core services that issue, fetch, and manage credential attribute bundles for entities such as Person or Organization.
• Build RESTful and GraphQL endpoints that meet strict standards for reliability, latency, and security, and integrate seamlessly with both internal and external systems.
• Develop robust data models and storage patterns to represent credential provenance and relationships across relational and graph databases.
• Implement credential lifecycle flows — including creation, validation, renewal, and revocation — integrated with ID.me's identity verification and attribute validation systems (AVS, face, domain validation, etc.).
• Ensure the security and privacy of credential data through strong authentication, authorization, encryption, and audit practices.
• Collaborate closely with Platform, Identity, Security, and Partner Engineering teams to deliver end-to-end features and integrations.
• Write high-quality, maintainable, and well-tested code , including automated tests and observability instrumentation.
• Contribute to system design discussions , code reviews, and technical documentation to drive clarity and alignment across teams.
• Continuously optimize performance , scalability, and reliability for credential services in production environments.
• Stay current on emerging identity and credentialing standards (e.g., Verifiable Credentials, Decentralized Identifiers, OIDC extensions) and bring new ideas into the product.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
• 8+ years of professional experience developing backend services and APIs in production environments.
• 8+ years experience in at least one backend language ( Python, Go, or Java ) and with modern frameworks.

Preferred Qualifications

• Demonstrated expertise in building and operating public-facing REST or GraphQL APIs at scale.
• Deep experience with relational databases (e.g., PostgreSQL) and NoSQL or graph data stores .
• Solid understanding of distributed systems concepts , caching, asynchronous processing, and cloud-native patterns.
• Experience implementing authentication and authorization (OAuth2, OIDC, JWT, or custom schemes).
• Proven ability to design, document, and evolve APIs used by multiple internal and external consumers.
• Familiarity with identity and credential verification systems , including data validation, proofing, or trust scoring.
• Experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure), including containerization and deployment pipelines.
• Knowledge of event-driven architectures (Kafka, SNS/SQS) and patterns for decoupled service communication.
• Exposure to digital credential and identity standards (e.g., Verifiable Credentials, Decentralized Identifiers, W3C DID specs).
• Experience working with API gateway technologies (e.g., Kong, Apigee, AWS API Gateway).
• Strong debugging and performance optimization skills in complex production systems.
• Contributions to open-source backend or identity-related projects are a plus.
• Experience in regulated or high-assurance domains (government, financial, or healthcare systems) is advantageous.