Backend Engineer, Identity

About the role

Tailscale is looking for a Backend Engineer focused on identity and access management. You will join a fully remote, early‑stage team and help shape the security and authentication backbone of the product.

Key responsibilities

• Design, build, test and document core backend components for the control plane, platform and identity services.
• Implement sign‑on features such as SSO, OAuth2, SAML and WebAuthn.
• Develop and maintain SCIM‑style provisioning to sync users, groups and attributes from external IdPs.
• Own the lifecycle of services, including observability, incident response and on‑call support.
• Analyze and improve efficiency, scalability and stability of system resources.

Required profile

• Experience with authentication and authorization protocols (OAuth2, OIDC, SSO, SAML) and a security‑first mindset.
• Background in building distributed, observable, secure and resilient services.
• Ability to work independently, give and receive constructive feedback, and communicate effectively in an asynchronous remote environment.

Required skills

• Go programming language
• OAuth2 and OpenID Connect (OIDC)
• SAML and WebAuthn
• SCIM provisioning (plus)
• SQL databases
• Distributed systems design
• Observability tooling
• Security best practices for authentication/authorization