Senior Security Engineer, Application Security

About Handshake

Handshake was founded on a simple belief that everyone deserves a path to a great career, regardless of where they went to school or who they know. Today, we power 25 million job seekers, 1 million+ employers, and 1,600 educational institutions.

In 2025, we started Handshake AI and built the fastest-growing AI data business in history. We work directly with frontier AI lab researchers to create evaluations, publish benchmarks, and push the boundary of data. We’ve grown from $0 to ~$1B run rate and pay ~$60M to over 30K individuals every month.

Why join Handshake now:

• Shape how every career evolves in the AI economy, at global scale, with impact your friends, family and peers can see and feel

• Partner hand-in-hand with world-class AI labs, Fortune 500 partners and the world’s top educational institutions

• Work together with engineers, scientists, operators, and more from Palantir, Meta, Scale AI, and former YC founders

• Build a massive, fast-growing business with billions in revenue

About the Role

Handshake is seeking a Senior Security Engineer to own the architecture, design, and implementation of our enterprise identity automation and governance ecosystem. You’ll define the long-term IAM automation strategy, build resilient and scalable lifecycle workflows, and enable secure-by-default identity operations across SaaS, cloud, and internal platforms.
You’ll partner closely with Security, IT Engineering, People Operations, and Product/Platform Engineering to deliver highly automated, auditable, and reliable identity solutions.

In this role, you will:

• Architect, build, and own automated onboarding, offboarding, and access-change workflows across Okta, Workday, SCIM, and event-driven systems.

• Engineer integration layers between identity platforms and internal applications using Python, REST APIs, Webhooks, and Terraform.

• Implement error-handling, reconciliation logic, telemetry, and monitoring to ensure reliability and determinism in identity lifecycle events.

• Modernize existing provisioning logic and replace manual processes with scalable automation frameworks.

• Develop tooling and pipelines enabling version-controlled, testable, observable IAM automation.

• Act as a technical owner for Handshake’s IAM ecosystem, including Okta, Google Workspace, GCP, AWS IAM, and internal access systems.

• Engineer and optimize authentication & authorization protocols (OIDC, OAuth2, SAML, JWT), fine-grained access policies, and scalable RBAC/ABAC models.

• Build custom automation using Okta Workflows or API-driven orchestration.

• Design SOC2-compliant access controls, approvals, attestations, and auditability mechanisms.

• Build automated access certification systems with full data lineage.

• Conduct identity-related incident forensics and implement preventative automation.

• Provide cross-functional leadership, setting standards, best practices, and reference architectures for identity automation.

• Serve as service owner for IAM automation platforms with accountability for uptime, consistency, and continuous improvement.

Desired Capabilities

• 4–7+ years of hands-on IAM engineering, identity automation, or identity governance experience.

• Strong scripting/automation skills in Python, Node.js, and REST-based integrations.

• Experience with IAM platforms such as Okta, Google Workspace/GCP, Azure AD, or similar.

• Deep understanding of identity protocols, token flows, SCIM, and distributed lifecycle orchestration.

• Experience with Terraform or other infrastructure-as-code frameworks.

• Ability to diagnose complex identity issues across SaaS, cloud, and distributed systems.

• Strong understanding of DevOps practices, observability, and secure engineering principles.

• Demonstrated ownership mindset across architecture, implementation, monitoring, and iterative improvement.

Extra Credit

• Advanced experience with GCP IAM, Google Workspace IAM, AWS IAM, cross-account access patterns, and policy automation.

• Experience with Okta Workflows, SailPoint/IGA, or Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions.

• Experience designing scalable authorization models for high-growth or distributed organizations.

• Certifications such as Okta Architect, Azure Identity Engineer, CISSP.

• Prior experience in SaaS, high-growth, or distributed engineering environments.

Perks

Handshake delivers benefits that help you feel supported—and thrive at work and in life.
The below benefits are for full-time US employees.

🎯 Ownership: Equity in a fast-growing company
💰 Financial Wellness: 401(k) match, competitive compensation, financial coaching
🍼 Family Support: Paid parental leave, fertility benefits, parental coaching
💝 Wellbeing: Medical, dental, and vision, mental health support, wellness stipend
📚 Growth: Learning stipend, ongoing development
💻 Remote & Office: Internet, commuting, and free lunch/gym in our SF office
🏝 Time Off: Flexible PTO, 15 holidays + 2 flex days
🤝 Connection: Team outings & referral bonuses

Explore our mission, values, and comprehensive US benefits at joinhandshake.com/careers.