Staff Developer - Authentication Enablement

1Password is growing. We’ve surpassed $500M in ARR and we’re continuing to accelerate, earning a spot on the Forbes Cloud 100 for four years in a row and teaming up with iconic partners like Oracle Red Bull Racing.

About 1Password

At 1Password, we’re building the foundation for a safe, productive digital future. Our mission is to unleash employee productivity without compromising security by ensuring every identity is authentic, every application sign-in is secure, and every device is trusted. We innovated the market-leading enterprise password manager and pioneered Unified Access Management, a new cybersecurity category built for the way people and AI agents work today. As one of the most loved brands in cybersecurity, we take a human-centric approach in everything from product strategy to user experience. Over 180,000 businesses, from Fortune 100 leaders to the world’s most innovative AI companies, trust 1Password to help their teams securely adopt the SaaS and AI tools they need to do their best work.

If you're excited about the opportunity to contribute to the digital safety of millions, to work alongside a team of curious, driven individuals, and to solve hard problems in a fast-paced, dynamic environment, then we want to hear from you. Come join us and help shape a safer, simpler digital future.

We're looking for a Staff Developer to join our Authentication Enablement team. Our mission is to help people, families and businesses unlock 1Password and access their information safely and simply, with authentication that stays in the background. Every 1Password app establishes its session with our servers through the service this team owns, whether the user signs in with a password and Secret Key, SSO, a passkey, MFA or a trusted device.

As a Staff Developer, you’ll help move authentication out of the monolith and into an independent service with its own data, so sign-in can scale and stay available independently of the rest of the platform. The service continues to handle production traffic throughout the migration, so we’re moving endpoint by endpoint and table by table, with weighted rollouts, consistency checks and tested rollback procedures. You'll help set the technical direction for the migration and for new authentication services, as 1Password extends trusted access to AI agents.

How we’re using AI today

Our Engineering, Product, and Design teams are thoughtfully integrating AI across the full software and product development lifecycle to move faster without sacrificing quality or security. In practice, that looks like engineers using AI-assisted coding tools to accelerate reviews and catch bugs earlier, product managers synthesizing user research at scale, and designers rapidly prototyping and iterating with AI-generated mockups. We approach AI the same way we approach security: with clear principles, human accountability at every consequential decision point, and rigorous evaluation before anything ships to customers.

This is a remote opportunity within Canada and the US.

What we're looking for:

• Significant experience building and operating backend services.

• Deep expertise with distributed systems and data: moving live traffic or data between systems without downtime, event streaming or change data capture, and keeping two sources of truth consistent through a cutover.

• Strong experience designing asynchronous workflows and migrating synchronous processes that depend on large atomic transactions to eventually consistent designs, while preserving correctness, clarifying tradeoffs, and improving performance.

• Working knowledge of authentication and authorization technologies such as OAuth, OIDC, WebAuthn, passkeys, or MFA, including common implementation pitfalls and security risks.

• A track record of setting technical direction for a team: owning large, multi-quarter projects, writing the designs others build from, and explaining tradeoffs to engineers and leadership alike.

• You raise the engineers around you through reviews, design feedback and mentoring, and you work to hand off ownership rather than holding on.

Bonus points for:

• Extensive experience with Go or another backend language such as Java, C#, Rust, C++, or Python.

• Experience extracting services from a monolith.

• Experience with MySQL, Redis, Kafka, and DynamoDB at scale.

• Familiarity with Secure Remote Password protocol.

• Owning services with strict availability targets, including SLOs, on-call and incident response.

What you can expect:

• Lead a portion of the authentication service's roadmap for the next 12 months, and work closely with leadership to ensure that planning reflects the full scope of requirements.

• Own significant designs in the remaining migration: moving session and device management flows, switching source of truth one provable iteration at a time, and publishing authentication events for other services to consume.

• Make and document the team's technical decisions, weighing reliability and security against delivery.

• Set the team's standards for testing, observability and safe rollout, so regressions surface before customers see them.

• Build the platform pieces the service needs when 1Password doesn't have them yet, and work with sibling teams to propagate new distributed system standards across the organization.

• Partner with the Authorization, Identity Services and Security teams, and guide the product teams whose features depend on authentication as they integrate with the service.

• Hold AI-assisted work on security-critical code to the same bar as everything else: human judgment, careful validation and small, reviewable changes.

• Participate in the 24/7 on-call rotation for tier-one services.

USA-based roles only: The annual base salary for this role is between $192,000 USD and $278,000 USD, plus immediate participation in 1Password's benefits program (health, dental, 401k and many others), utilization of our generous paid time off, an equity grant and, where applicable, participation in our incentive programs.

Canada-based roles only: The annual base salary for this role is between $167,000 CAD and $242,000 CAD, plus immediate participation in 1Password’s generous benefits program (health, dental, RRSP and many others), utilization of our generous paid time off, an equity grant and, where applicable, participation in our incentive programs.

At 1Password, we approach each individual's compensation with a promise of fair market value and internal equity commensurate with experience and specific skill set.

This posting is for an existing vacancy.

Our culture
At 1Password, we prioritize collaboration, clear and transparent communication, receptiveness to feedback, and alignment with our core values: keep it simple, lead with honesty, and put people first.

You’ll be part of a team that challenges the status quo, and is excited to experiment and iterate in search of the best solution. That said, 1Password is not for everyone. Our work is demanding, we strive for excellence, and the pace is fast. We need people who are keen to take on challenging problems, who seek feedback to grow, and who are driven to make an impact. If you're looking for a place where you can settle into a comfortable routine, this might not be the right fit for you. We’re looking for individuals who are proven experts in their fields, as well as those who are highly adaptable, can thrive in ambiguity and through change, are curious, and above all deliver results.

How we work with AI
We are committed to leveraging cutting-edge technology—including AI—to achieve our mission. We also understand that thinking critically about AI in its current forms will help us create better solutions for our customers and ourselves with its future forms, which will help us continue to close the gap between security and privacy and achieve our mission. We want team members at all levels to take the approach of actively learning AI best practices, identifying opportunities to apply AI in meaningful ways, and driving innovative solutions in their daily work. Embracing the future of AI isn't just encouraged—it's an essential part of how we will be successful at 1Password.

This approach extends to our hiring process—candidates are welcome to use AI tools responsibly and thoughtfully during the application process. To us, this means we do ask that you join live interviews without using AI tools so we can get to know how you communicate, solve problems, and collaborate with others.

Our approach to remote work
We believe in the power of remote work, but recognize that in-person connection is important to help us achieve our mission. While we are a remote-first company, travel for in-person engagement is a part of almost all roles, and we require our employees to be ready and willing to take part. Frequency will depend on role and responsibilities, and may include, but is not limited to: annual department-wide offsites, team meetings, and customer/industry events.

What we offer
We believe in working hard, and rewarding that hard work through our benefits. While not an exhaustive list, here is a glance at what we currently offer:

Health and wellbeing
👶 Maternity and parental leave top-up programs
🩺 Competitive health benefits
🏝 Generous PTO policy

Growth and future
📈 RSU program for most employees
💸 Retirement matching program
🔑 Free 1Password account

Community
🤝 Paid volunteer days
🏆 Peer-to-peer recognition through Bonusly
🌎 Remote-first work environment
*Some roles in our GTM team are currently being hired for in-person hybrid work in Toronto and Austin. These roles will specify on the posting.

You belong here.

1Password is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to fostering an inclusive, diverse and equitable workplace that is built on trust, support and respect. We welcome all individuals and do not discriminate on the basis of gender identity and expression, race, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, colour, religion, creed, gender, national origin, age, marital status, pregnancy, sex, citizenship, education, languages spoken or veteran status. Be yourself, find your people and share the things you love.

Accommodation is available upon request at any point during our recruitment process. If you require an accommodation, please speak to your talent acquisition partner or email us at [email protected] and we’ll work to meet your needs.

Remote work is a part of our DNA. Given that our company was founded remotely in 2005, we can safely say we're experts at building remote culture. That said, remote work at 1Password does mean working from your home country. If you've got questions or concerns about this, your talent partner would be happy to address them with you.

Successful applicants will be required to complete a background check that may consist of prior employment verification, reference checks, education confirmation, criminal background, publicly available social media, credit history, or other information, as permitted by local law.

1Password uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies, including natural language processing and predictive analytics, to assist in the initial screening of employment applications and improve our recruitment process. See here for the latest third party bias audit information. If you prefer not to have your application assessed using AI/ML features, you may opt out by completing this form. For additional information see our Candidate Privacy Notice.