Senior Backend Engineer - Identity & Access Management

Senior Backend Engineer - Identity & Access Management

onX is a high-growth tech company building products for outdoor experiences. This role focuses on designing, developing, and scaling secure authentication, authorization, and user management services that are foundational to our platform. You will contribute to cross-platform authentication across iOS, Android, and web and work within the Core Services team to enable product teams to build faster and more securely.

This position reports to the Director of Engineering, Core Services.

Build scalable, secure IAM services that enable new features and products across the onX suite of apps. Design and implement backend systems with emphasis on observability, fault-tolerance, security, and high performance. Drive architectural decisions related to Identity and Access Management in alignment with the broader platform strategy. Define and implement SLIs/SLOs for IAM services; drive reliability engineering practices including incident response and performance optimization.

Write thorough unit, integration, and acceptance tests. Document APIs, service architectures, and technical decisions. Collaborate with engineers, product managers, and other stakeholders through design reviews and cross-functional planning sessions. Leverage and extend existing onX services and platform patterns to reduce duplication. Proactively improve system monitoring, alerting, diagnostics, and operational readiness of IAM-related services. Participate in an on-call rotation to ensure backend services remain highly available.

Mentor engineers and foster a culture of technical excellence, ownership, and collaboration.

Location information: onX has a distributed workforce with options to work from Corporate Offices, Basecamps, or Connection Hubs.

Corporate Offices:
Missoula, MT;
Bozeman, MT. Basecamps and Connection Hubs: distributed locations within defined radii of listed cities.

• B.S., M.S., or equivalent experience in computer science or a related field
• Eight or more years of professional software development experience, with API development as a primary focus for at least three years
• Strong Go/Golang backend development experience with RESTful API design
• Experience building and debugging distributed, scalable, highly available microservices architecture
• Solid understanding of identity systems: OAuth 2.0, session management, bearer token authentication, SSO
• Experience with distributed databases (Cockroach
  
  DB or similar) and relational databases (Postgre
  
  SQL, MySQL)
• Designing and developing modern APIs and scalable systems for reliability and extensibility
• Familiarity with Docker, Kubernetes, and infrastructure-as-code technologies (Terraform)
• Security-first mindset with threat modeling and defense in depth
• Ability to evaluate technologies based on merit, stability, performance, and debuggability
• Write maintainable, well-tested code with strong ownership
• Advocacy for customers and their experience
• Permanent US work authorization is a condition of employment

Though not required, candidates with any of the following are welcome to apply:

• Experience with identity platforms such as Ory Kratos, Auth0, Cognito, or similar
• Experience with the Ory Stack (Hydra, Kratos, Oath keeper)
• Experience with fine-grained authorization systems (e.g., Spice
  
  DB, Zanzibar, Cedar)
• Reliability engineering experience: SLI/SLO implementation, incident response, performance optimization
• Security compliance experience (SOC2) or related audits
• Experience with Elixir or Phoenix; familiarity with Google Cloud Platform
• Experience working with a distributed team

Compensation range for this position is between $146,000 and $182,000 per year, depending on experience, skills, and education. Full-time employees are eligible for equity grants with a vesting schedule and an annual bonus opportunity based on company performance.

• Competitive salaries, annual bonuses, equity, and opportunities for growth
• Comprehensive health benefits
• Parental leave plan of 5 or 13 weeks fully paid
• 401k matching
• Outdoor industry perks and activities
• Annual wellness funds to support an active lifestyle
• Flexible time away package including PTO and other paid time off

onX assesses performance based on cognitive abilities and problem-solving. We will consider reasonable accommodations to support diverse abilities. If you need assistance or accommodation, please contact the recruitment team.