Senior Software engineer - Advanced Threat Protection

Identity is the key to unlocking the potential of AI. Okta secures AI by building the trusted, neutral infrastructure that enables organizations to safely embrace this new era. This work requires a relentless drive to solve complex challenges with real-world stakes. We are looking for builders and owners who operate...

This is an opportunity to do career-defining work. We're all in on this mission. If you are too, let's talk.

Security Engineer, Customer Identity, Advanced Threat Protection

We seek a knowledgeable and research-focused Security Engineer to join a new Advanced Threat Protection team within Auth0 Customer Identity. This role does two things at once: it researches how attackers will use AI against identity systems, and it researches and builds how we use AI to defend our products, our infrastructure, and — most importantly — our customers' tenants.
This role is a key member of the Security team embedded within the Customer Identity product unit and works across multiple functions to get ahead of emerging AI threats, supporting the growth of our global Customer Identity business.
We are an engineering-focused team that seeks to stay on the cutting edge of security technology and the threat landscape. In this role you won't just assess our current AI security offering — you'll research what we should be protecting customers from one to two years ahead, turn that research into concrete protections, and help put AI-assisted defenses into the hands of the teams and customers who protect their tenants.
In this role you will work as part of a globally distributed team of talented engineers who share a passion for security and enjoy solving complex problems at scale. This role works closely with and alongside the members of the broader Okta Security team in support of Okta's company-wide security strategy and Okta’s Secure Identity Commitment.
This is a level-agnostic description; scope, autonomy, and leadership expectations scale with level (Senior through Staff).
Research and lead how we can use AI to protect customer tenants — both proactively (hardening posture before an attack) and during active incidents (accelerating detection, triage, and response)  
Research and build protections against novel AI attacks that Auth0 and Auth0's customers can be subjected to — adversarial ML, prompt injection, abuse of agentic protocols (MCP, A2A, UCP, and emerging equivalents), model and data poisoning — as they apply to identity systems and customer tenants
Partner with the identity security teams to help customers strengthen their own tenant security posture through AI-assisted defenses  
Research the emerging AI threat landscape and translate it into a forward-looking (12–24 month) view of what we need to protect ourselves and our customers from — then architect, recommend, and build the tooling to get there  
Review and harden Auth0's AI security offering, identifying gaps and recommending mitigations before they're exploited  
Partner across a globally distributed product-aligned team of security engineers to turn research into shipped protections for customer tenants  
Establish a deep understanding of Okta Customer Identity products and infrastructure  
Build, deploy & maintain scalable security solutions and automation that operationalize AI threat defenses at scale  
Help meet our operational security commitments by thinking like an attacker, assessing the risk, and advising on mitigation strategies  
Collaborate with the Okta Security team on security operations and, where relevant, support investigations and root cause analysis
Dedicated application security, code review, or compliance-focused work  
Reactive patch and vulnerability management as a primary function — this role is about getting ahead of threats, not chasing them

You have hands-on experience with AI/ML security — attacking, defending, or both (e.g., adversarial ML, LLM/prompt-injection attacks, agentic-system or model abuse), and an interest in using AI to build defenses, not just to study attacks  
You have 4+ years of experience in security engineering, with a strong foundation in cloud infrastructure and/or product security  
You have hands-on development experience — Go preferred — sufficient to prototype tooling, build AI-powered defenses, and operationalize your research  
You have working knowledge and hands-on experience with one or more of the following:  
AWS and/or Azure security  
Kubernetes  
You have strong knowledge of OWASP (including the OWASP Top 10 for LLM Applications) and secure coding best practices  
You have a strong foundation in secure software development lifecycle best practices  
You have strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to turn research into clear guidance for engineering and product teams  
You have experience working with a globally distributed and remote team
You have published threat research, CVEs, or conference talks in AI/ML security or identity security  
You have built AI/ML-powered security tooling or defensive automation in a production environment  
You have working knowledge and experience with one or more of the following:  
Adversarial ML, model red-teaming, or AI safety research  
The AI agent / MCP ecosystem and its security implications  
Identity and access management  
Full-stack engineering  
Site reliability engineering  
Vulnerability and threat management  
Governance, risk and compliance
#LI-Hybrid
#P25953_3566460
The Okta Experience
Supporting Your Well-Being 
Driving Social Impact 
Developing Talent and Fostering Connection + Community
We are intentional about connection. Our global community, spanning over 20 offices worldwide, is united by a drive to innovate. Your journey begins with an immersive, in-person onboarding experience designed to accelerate your impact and connect you to our mission and team from day one.
Okta is an