Senior Director, Architecture (Customer Identity Cloud)

United States

Get to know Okta

Okta is The World’s Identity Company. We free everyone to safely use any technology—anywhere, on any device or app. Our Workforce and Customer Identity Clouds enable secure yet flexible access, authentication, and automation that transforms how people move through the digital world, putting Identity at the heart of business security and growth. 

At Okta, we celebrate a variety of perspectives and experiences. We are not looking for someone who checks every single box - we’re looking for lifelong learners and people who can make us better with their unique experiences. 

Join our team! We’re building a world where Identity belongs to you.

The Okta Customer Identity Cloud (CIC) is a product unit of Okta focussed on the Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) space. We are looking for exceptional new team members to join our team and help drive our next level of success. One team, one score!

Our vision is to free everyone to safely use any technology.  We provide secure access for everyone, but not just anyone. We process billions of logins per month (and growing!). So, if you’re a big thinker who is nimble and adaptable, Okta CIC may be an ideal place for you to shine.

 The Team & Role:

Okta is looking for a Senior Director to lead the Architecture team within our Engineering organization.  This role will report to the Vice President, Architecture & Chief Architect.  The Architecture team is a small group of very senior engineers who work broadly across the organization with Engineering, Product, and Security.  We embed closely with other Engineering teams for large projects, and provide direction and architectural guidance for smaller initiatives.  We have a dual-pronged charter to “level up the tech stack and level up the people stack” via both technical contributions and partnerships/mentoring.  Successful candidates will have a passion for building reliable and scalable systems, a strong technical background, and excellent collaboration skills.

In this role, you will have the opportunity to significantly contribute to Okta’s future architecture by leading a team that works across our entire stack.  You will help align and magnify the impact of our senior technologists, lend voice to prioritization discussions, and develop Engineering culture.

What You Will Do

  • As a Senior Director, you will lead and grow a cross-functional team of seasoned Architects and Senior Architects working on technologies including core product offerings, emerging products, infrastructure, platform, artificial intelligence, data, quality, and identity industry standards.
  • You will be responsible for evolving our product architecture to optimize resilience, scale, cost efficiency, security, and flexibility.
  • You will be responsible for hiring, retaining, and growing architects who thrive on autonomy, cross-functional collaboration, and measurable impact.
  • You will join our Engineering Leadership Team and work closely with other leaders and executives from across Engineering to set priorities, foster organizational health, and deliver the most trusted identity platform in the industry.
  • Participate in mentoring, “round table” discussions, and other programs designed to level up our people.
  • Undergo training as an Incident Commander, join an on-call rotation for major incidents, and drive learnings from incidents back into our product architecture.

What You Bring

  • Experience in a senior leadership/executive software engineering management role in a remote work environment.
  • Experience leading and growing very senior engineers who work in cross-functional roles.
  • Track record of fostering autonomy and building handholds and guardrails to help an Engineering organization move faster.
  • Strong background in large-scale software architecture for SaaS, including cloud-native computing, distributed systems, and API-first implementations.  
  • Strong self-motivation, tolerance for ambiguity, and aptitude for investigation and experimentation.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills.  In particular, demonstrated ability to adapt communication style to audiences ranging from engineers to executives to external audiences.
  • Passion for driving both technical and cultural excellence and a track record of communicating about both to the industry through conferences written communication, and industry collaboration.
  • Demonstrated ability to provide and take feedback to foster growth and build trust throughout a diverse organization.
  • Excellent collaboration skills and a track record of cross-functional collaboration.  One team, one score!
  Okta’s Top 5 Core Leadership Competencies are part of the deeply ingrained principles that guide all of our company’s actions. They also align strongly to our cultural cornerstones, our Okta values: love our customers, empower our people, never stop innovating, act with integrity, and maintain transparency. It’s our expectation that our managers and leaders embody these core competencies:
  • Builds Effective Teams: Building strong-identity teams that apply their diverse skills and perspectives to achieve common goals.          
  • Demonstrates Self-Awareness (EQ): Using a combination of feedback and reflection to gain productive insight into personal strengths and weaknesses.
  • Develops Talent: Developing people to meet both their career goals and the organization’s goals.
  • Drives Results: Consistently achieving results, even under tough circumstances.
  • Strategic Mindset: Seeing ahead to future possibilities and translating them into breakthrough strategies.

#LI-Remote

#LI-EZ1

Below is the annual base salary range for candidates located in California, Colorado, New York and Washington. Your actual base salary will depend on factors such as your skills, qualifications, experience, and work location. In addition, Okta offers equity (where applicable), bonus, and benefits, including health, dental and vision insurance, 401(k), flexible spending account, and paid leave (including PTO and parental leave) in accordance with our applicable plans and policies. To learn more about our Total Rewards program please visit: https://rewards.okta.com/us.   

The annual base salary range for this position for candidates located in California (excluding San Francisco Bay Area), Colorado, New York, and Washington is between:$256,000—$384,000 USD The annual base salary range for this position for candidates located in the San Francisco Bay area is between: $286,000—$430,000 USD

What you can look forward to as an Full-Time Okta employee!

Okta cultivates a dynamic work environment, providing the best tools, technology and benefits to empower our employees to work productively in a setting that best and uniquely suits their needs. Each organization is unique in the degree of flexibility and mobility in which they work so that all employees are enabled to be their most creative and successful versions of themselves, regardless of where they live. Find your place at Okta today! https://www.okta.com/company/careers/.

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Okta
The foundation for secure connections between people and technology

Okta is the leading independent provider of identity for the enterprise. The Okta Identity Cloud enables organizations to securely connect the right people to the right technologies at the right time. With over 7,000 pre-built integrations to applications and infrastructure providers, Okta customers can easily and securely use the best technologies for their business. More than 18,800 organizations, including JetBlue, Nordstrom, Slack, T-Mobile, Takeda, Teach for America, and Twilio, trust Okta to help protect the identities of their workforces and customers.

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