Senior Software Engineer - Identity & Authorization Platform
ClickHouse · Posted Sep 18
High-performance, column-oriented open-source database and real-time analytics platform
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About the role
The Platform Auth team's goal is to support the 'one customer identity' vision by providing tools, processes, and expertise for engineering teams to create a unified access management experience while simplifying and standardizing engineering patterns in the space. The team is growing and looking for engineers to design and build the platform services that power authentication, authorization, and audit across ClickHouse Cloud. This role will work on a unified RBAC/ReBAC service, token issuance and session handling, protocol-level SSO and provisioning integrations, and the SDKs product teams embed to make authorization decisions.
What you will do
- Design and build the platform services that power authentication, authorization, and audit across ClickHouse Cloud. This includes a unified RBAC/ReBAC service, token issuance and session handling, and the SDKs that product teams embed to make authorization decision.
- Model permissions and access control primitives (resources, roles, relationships, policies) that work across ClickHouse, SQL Console, ClickPipes, and HyperDX. Ship the libraries and APIs that other engineers build against.
- Implement protocol-level support for SAML, SCIM, OIDC, OAuth2, and MFA/passwordless flows. Own the integrations that make enterprise SSO and provisioning work end to end.
- Build the audit and authorization-decision telemetry pipeline so every access decision is observable, queryable, and surfaceable to customers.
- Partner with product engineering teams to migrate bespoke per-product auth implementations onto the shared platform, and design APIs that make adoption straightforward.
- Carry the platform on-call rotation and own production reliability for systems on the critical path of every customer request.
Skills used in this role
What the employer is looking for
- Minimum 4+ years building production backend systems at scale. Comfort with at least one systems language (Go, Rust, C++) and one application language (TypeScript, Python).
- Hands-on experience designing and implementing an authentication or authorization service. Examples include building a token issuer, an OIDC or OAuth2 provider, a policy engine, a permissions model, or an FGA/ReBAC system in the style of Zanzibar, OpenFGA, SpiceDB, or Cedar.
- Working knowledge of SAML, SCIM, OIDC, and OAuth2 at the protocol level and are able to implement them.
- Experience designing APIs and SDKs that other engineers depend on, with strong opinions on what makes them adoptable.
- Experience operating distributed systems at scale, including caching strategies, consistency tradeoffs, and multi-region concerns.
- Familiarity with identity vendors (Auth0, WorkOS, AWS/GCP/Azure IAM) as building blocks you've extended or integrated into a larger platform.
- Strong production debugging instincts and a high bar for systems that are easy to develop against.
Preferred qualifications
- You've built or contributed to a Zanzibar-style authorization system, or run an OpenFGA or SpiceDB deployment beyond the demo.
- You've designed a multi-tenant permission model that survived real customer requirements like custom roles, hierarchies, delegation, and ABAC attributes.
- You've shipped an SDK that product teams across an org actually adopted, and have opinions about why most internal SDKs fail.
Benefits and support
- Flexible work environment - ClickHouse is a globally distributed company and remote-friendly. We currently operate in over 25 countries.
- Healthcare - Employer contributions towards your healthcare.
- Equity in the company - Every new team member who joins our company receives stock options.
- Time off - Flexible time off in the US, generous entitlement in other countries.
- A USD$500 Home office setup if you're a remote employee.
- Global Gatherings – We believe in the power of in-person connection and offer opportunities to engage with colleagues at company-wide offsites.
- ClickHouse provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type based on factors such as race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.
About ClickHouse
ClickHouse is a high-performance, column-oriented open-source database management system for online analytical processing (OLAP). It enables businesses and developers to generate real-time analytical reports and process massive volumes of structured data with extreme speed. The company provides both self-managed deployments and fully managed cloud infrastructure tailored for modern data-intensive and AI-driven applications.
- Industry
- Database
- Company size
- 500-1000 employees
- Founded
- 2021
- Location
- San Francisco, California, USA
- Funding stage
- Series D
Funding
Series D · $1.05B raised
- 2021-09-01Series A$50M
- 2021-10-28Series B$250M
- 2025-05-29Series C$350M
- 2026-01-16Series D$400M
Leadership
Co-Founder & CEO
Co-Founder & CTO
Co-Founder & President
Jimmy Sexton
Chief Financial Officer
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