Staff Software Engineer

Please Note: This is a remote position available in the state listed on this job. Additionally, employment with BambooHR is contingent on passing both a background and credit check. AI at BambooHR At BambooHR, we’re all about setting people free to do great work, and we believe AI is a powerful partner in that mission. We’re leaning into intelligent tools to streamline our workflows, giving us more time for high-impact innovation. We look for curious, forward-thinking people who are ready to explore how AI can elevate their work and help us reimagine the future of HR. Essential Job Duties Our ideal Staff Software Engineer, Permissions will be the technical authority for BambooHR's next-generation permission service — designing and building the system that securely controls what every user, token, and agent can do across our platform. You'll own the architecture of a greenfield permissions service from the ground up, define AuthN/AuthZ patterns for 180+ product domains, and be the connective tissue between the Token Titans team and the engineering organization that depends on the work you ship. If you get energy from solving hard identity and access problems at scale — and doing it in a way that other engineers actually want to build on — this role is for you. You will: Drive the delivery of the architecture and delivery of a new permission service — from first design doc to production, including data model, policy evaluation engine, enforcement APIs, and token contract Refine and Define BambooHR's AuthN/AuthZ standards — the patterns for authentication flows, token issuance, scoped authorization, and role/attribute-based access control that product teams rely on Design the API contract for the permission service: how callers request access decisions, how policies are defined, and how enforcement is decoupled from individual product domains Drive token strategy — JWT issuance, rotation, scoping, revocation, and the relationship between tokens and permissions across both human and machine (API/agent) callers Partner with product and platform teams to translate domain-specific access control requirements into reusable permission primitives that scale across the organization Lead architectural reviews for features with AuthN/AuthZ implications; catch design debt before it ships Collaborate with Security and Compliance to ensure the permission service meets audit, least-privilege, and zero-trust requirements Set the technical bar for the Token Titans team: mentor engineers, lead RFCs, and ensure implementation quality matches architectural intent What You Need to Get the Job Done 10+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 3 years operating at Staff or Principal level Deep expertise in identity and access management — authentication protocols (OAuth 2.0, OIDC, SAML), authorization models (RBAC, ABAC, ReBAC), and token lifecycle management (JWTs, opaque tokens, refresh/rotation strategies) Demonstrated experience designing and building AuthN/AuthZ systems at scale — not just integrating with them, but owning the architecture that others build on Strong instincts for policy-as-code, permission modeling, and how to express complex access rules as a clean, evolvable data model Experience designing or reviewing OpenAPI specifications, event-driven architectures, and cross-service communication patterns in a service-oriented or microservice environment Strong backend engineering fundamentals; comfort working in a PHP monolith with modern architectural patterns Proven ability to drive org-wide architectural decisions — writing RFCs, leading reviews, building consensus across teams with competing priorities Excellent communication skills: precise written specs, verbal presentations to engineering leadership, and the ability to explain tradeoffs in identity and security without losing the room What Will Make Us REALLY Love You Hands-on experience building a permission service or authorization framework from scratch (e.g., Z…