Principal Software Engineer - Identity Graph

Job Description

**See yourself at Twilio**

Join the team as a Principal Software Engineer for Stytch, where you'll shape the next generation of identity storage, relationship tracking and resolution.

**About the job**

As a Principal Software Engineer, you will serve as the technical anchor for a brand new, 0-1 initiative: building an Identity Graph on the Fraud \& Risk teams. This foundational platform will synthesize data across multi-cadence sources to provide real-time identity resolution across multiple use cases. You will take early-stage concepts and POCs, wrangle ambiguity, and actively clarify boundaries to turn them into an actional MVP. In this role you will help own the platform's technical direction, creating a clean separation between the graph substrate and downstream consumers. You'll partner closely with product management, architect and engineering leadership to drive cross-team alignment and manage stakeholder expectations. This is a rare change to operate like a startup within Twilio: you'll work in a high-ownership environment with startup speed, backed by Twilio's reach and scale.

**Responsibilities**

* Own the technical vision and system architecture for Identity Graph - evaluating and selecting the optimal technology stack to store complex identifiers and their relationships.
* Design, implement, and maintain high-performance, synchronous read models capable of serving identifier topologies and risk postures fast enough for real time risk decisions.
* Build out complex data pipelines optimized for multi-cadence hydration, margin real-time dynamic events, periodic batch enrichments and static reference data.
* Bake in strict privacy boundaries and secure PII handling from day 1.
* Partner closely with product and engineering leadership to manage expectations, set direction, and turn initial concepts into actionable plans,
* Collaborate across Twilio and Stytch teams to align on architecture, integrate platform capabilities and unblock cross-team initiatives.
* Wrangle ambiguity and execute with a bias for action in grey areas - proactively breaking down undefined problems, making pragmatic architectural trades offs and helping write requirements instead of waiting for them
* Establish strong production quality, resilience and observability standards for a large-scale data and distributed graph platform.
* Deeply collaborate with the engineering team, prioritizing mentorship, knowledge-sharing, and pairing to elevate the team's technical bar while actively bringing others along with you.

**Qualifications**

Twilio values diverse experiences from all kinds of industries, and we encourage everyone who meets the required qualifications to apply. If your career is just starting or hasn't followed a traditional path, don't let that stop you from considering Twilio. We are always looking for people who will bring something new to the table!

**Required:**

* 8 years experience in designing, building and operating high-scale, mission critical distributed systems, graph databases, and complex data models.
* Deep hands-on expertise in a production-grade code base in a modern programming language, setting best practice coding standards and writing high quality code.
* Proven experience serving as a strong technical anchor, owning system architecture and vision, and leading cross-functional engineering teams through implementation.
* Exceptional ability to wrangle ambiguity and execute with a bias for action - proactively clarifying boundaries, defining scope and turning concepts into an actionable MVP.
* Deep commitment to collaborative team dynamics and mentorship, with a track record of prioritizing bringing others along and actively raising a team's technical bar.
* Excellent written and verbal communication skills with proven ability to manage stakeholder expectations and drive technical alignment across product and engineering.
* Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related industry experience.
* Schedule: ability to work non-standard, on-call rotation weekend and holiday hours.

**Desired:**

* Familiarity with Go, Kubernetes, and DynamoDB or past experience with identity resolution or fraud detection systems
* Experience building 0-1 foundational platforms or complex data infrastructure that ensures clean separation between core substrates and downstream consumers
* Experience designing high-performance real-time synchronous read model and complex data pipelines.
* Builder at heart. Through a hobby or your profession, you are passionate about being hands on and seeing your work come to life.

**Location**

This role will be remote.

**Travel**

We prioritize connection and opportunities to build relationships with our customers and each other. For this role, you may be required to travel occasionally to participate in project or team in-person meetings.

**What We Offer**

Working at Twilio offers many benefits, including competitive pay, generous time off, ample parental and wellness leave, healthcare, a retirement savings program, and much more. Offerings vary by location.