Principal Software Engineer - Identity Graph

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.