Senior Software Engineer - IAM

Lambda, The Superintelligence Cloud, is a leader in AI cloud infrastructure serving tens of thousands of customers. Our customers range from AI researchers to enterprises and hyperscalers. Lambda's mission is to make compute as ubiquitous as electricity and give everyone the power of superintelligence. One person, one GPU.

If you'd like to build the world's best AI cloud, join us.

*Note: This position requires presence in our San Francisco office location 4 days per week; Lambda’s designated work from home day is currently Tuesday.

Role Summary

Build and scale Lambda’s Identity and Access Management (IAM) platform, enabling secure, reliable and intuitive access control across all products and customers.

As a Senior Engineer, you will own the design and implementation of core IAM capabilities such as RBAC, authentication flows, and identity lifecycle systems. You’ll work within Lambda’s broader IAM architecture to deliver systems that are secure, scalable and easy for developers and customers to use.

This role is ideal for engineers who enjoy working on security-critical systems, care deeply about correctness and usability, and can independently drive complex features from design through production. IAM is a critical foundation for Lambda’s enterprise readiness and will shape how customers securely access compute, data, and infrastructure at scale.

What you’ll Do

• Design and implement core IAM components including identity models, authentication flows and authorization systems

• Build and evolve enterprise IAM features such as RBAC, SSO (SAML/OIDC), SCIM provisioning, MFA, and audit logging

• Own end-to-end delivery of IAM features from technical design to production rollout and monitoring

• Collaborate with teams across API Experience, Billing, Core Cloud Platform, Console Experience, Infrastructure and Security to integrate consistent identity and access patterns across systems

• Contribute to API design and ensure consistency in identity and permission semantics across services

• Participate in design reviews and provide thoughtful input on system architecture and tradeoffs

• Debug and resolve complex production issues in security-sensitive systems

• Improve system reliability, observability, and operational workflows for IAM services

• Mentor junior engineers and contribute to raising the bar on engineering quality

You (Must-Haves)

• 5+ years of backend or platform engineering experience

• Strong experience building or working on authentication and/or authorization systems

• Solid understanding of IAM fundamentals:

  • Authentication (OAuth2, OIDC, SAML)

  • Authorization (RBAC, ABAC, or similar models)

  • Identity lifecycle concepts (provisioning, deprovisioning)

• Experience building distributed systems in a cloud or SaaS environment

• Strong coding skills in Python or Go, with experience building production backend systems

• Experience designing APIs and working with service-oriented architectures

• Ability to independently own projects and deliver high-quality systems

• Strong debugging, problem-solving, and communication skills

Nice-to-Haves

• Experience with enterprise IAM features (SSO, SCIM, MFA, audit logs)

• Familiarity with identity providers (Okta, Auth0, WorkOS)

• Exposure to multi-tenant system design

• Experience working on developer platforms or infrastructure products

• Understanding of security best practices in cloud environments

• Ability to interact di