Staff Engineer, Authentication and Authorization

Staff Engineer, Authentication and Authorization

Location

Lisbon, London, Madrid

Team

Engineering & IT

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Are you a visionary and experienced software engineer with a passion for authentication and authorization? Are you excited about things like identity and access management (IAM), permissions, access tokens, multi-factor authentication (MFA) and single sign-on (SSO)? Do you thrive on tackling complex technical challenges and building scalable systems? If this sounds like you, Pleo needs your expertise!

We are about to create a dedicated auth team that rethinks and renews how authentication and authorization are handled in Pleo with the goal to ensure the security and integrity of our systems. We intend to follow open industry standards and use third party providers. Youll be working closely with product teams to make auth as easy to use as possible, but also with platform teams like Backend Core that provide common libraries and internal frameworks as well as with the Security team.

Why you should apply:

As a Staff Engineer at Pleo, you wont just solve problems; youll redefine how we do things. Were searching for an engineering powerhouse with a product-focused mindset who is eager to mentor, innovate, and drive strategic vision.

In this role, youll be a force multiplier—elevating the teams performance and delivering impactful solutions that ripple across the entire credit offering. Youll act as the glue between where are and where we want to be, steering the technical direction and empowering everyone to excel.

What youll do:

• Architectural Ownership: Take charge of critical system components.
• Visionary Thinking: Articulate the why behind each technical decision with clarity and passion.
• Continuous Innovation: Bring fresh ideas and strategic trade-offs rooted in a deep understanding of our users.
• Iterative Development: Build features incrementally with a focus on early feedback and continuous improvement.
• Mentorship: Foster a culture of innovation and collaboration through technical coaching and inclusion.

What success looks like:

• Scalable Infrastructure: More performance, fewer bugs.
• Testing Excellence: Catch those pesky bugs before our users do.
• Reliable Delivery: Ensure consistent, timely delivery that meets user and stakeholders needs.
• Innovative Solutions: Identify creative and scalable technology solutions that make AuthN and AuthZ surprisingly easy for our internal product teams.
• Motivated Team: Contribute towards forming a high-performing, cohesive team through mentorship and embodying our team culture of curiosity, humility and kindness.

You know your way around:

• Cloud environments / distributed systems / microservices (AWS, Google Cloud, Kubernetes)
• Architecting scalable solutions and API design
• Authentication & authorisation for APIs
• Server-side languages (we mainly use Kotlin and TypeScript)
• Testing frameworks, observability, and monitoring
• Optional but beneficial: 3rd party authentication providers

Your colleagues would say you are:

• An outstanding communicator who can clearly share ideas
• Perpetually curious, always learning new technologies and methodologies
• A dedicated coach for fellow engineers, helping them grow
• A proponent of thorough code review processes and testing
• A key contributor to designing holistic solutions, not just writing code
• Someone theyd enjoy having a coffee with
• Naturally inclined to solve intricate problems and drive towards effective solutions

Why join us? Working at Pleo means youre working on something very exciting: the future of work. Our mission is to help every company go beyond the books. Pleo itself means ‘more than youd expect, and its been the secret to our success over the last 8 years. So its only fitting that wed pass this philosophy onto our customers to help them make the most of their finances. We think company spending should be delegated to all employees and teams, that it should be as automated as possible, and that it should drive a culture of responsible spending. Finance teams shouldnt be siloed from the rest of the organisation - they should work in unity with marketing, sales, IT and everyone else. Speaking of working in unity, our values tell the story of how we work at Pleo. We have four core values, the first of which is ‘champion the customer, which means we address real pain points that businesses face. Next up is ‘succeed as a team, which highlights how our strength lies in our diversity and trust in each other. We also ‘make it happen by taking bold decisions and following through to deliver results. Last but not least, we ‘build to scale, creating lasting solutions that address todays challenges and anticipate tomorrows needs. So, in a nutshell, thats Pleo. Today we are a 850+ team, from over 100 nations, sitting in our Copenhagen HQ, London, Stockholm, Berlin, Madrid, Montreal and Lisbon offices —and quite a few full-time remotes in 35 other countries! Being HQd out of Copenhagen means were inspired by things like a good work-life balance. If you dont work in the office with us, well help you set up the best remote setup possible and make sure you still have time to connect with your team.

About your application

Please submit your application in English; its our company language so youll be speaking lots of it if you join

• We treat all candidates equally: If you are interested please apply through our application system - any correspondence should come from there! Our lovely support isnt able to pass on any calls/ emails our way - and this makes sure that the candidate experience is smooth and fair to everyone
• Were on a mission to make everyone feel valued at work. Thats only achievable if our team reflects the diversity of the world around us - and that starts with you, hitting apply, even if you are worried you might not tick all the boxes! We embrace and encourage people from all backgrounds to apply - regardless of race/ethnicity, colour, religion, nationality, gender, sex, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, neurodiversity, socio-economic status, culture or beliefs.
• When you submit an application we process your personal data as a data processor. Find out more about how your data is used in the FAQs section at the bottom of our jobs page.

Got any questions? Read our FAQ

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Were looking for new friends, gifted minds, team players, restless talents and passionate problem solvers.

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How Pleo hires

• 1

  The first call(s)

  Lets get to know each other. We want to find out more about you, your motivations, and give you more information about the role.

• 2

  The challenge

  The task is deliberately open-ended and based on something youll actually work on. There are no right or wrong answers here.

• 3

  The team interview

  Expect to share a (virtual) meeting room with two to three people youll work with regularly if you get the job.

• 4

  The final interview

  A call with someone in leadership wholl walk you through the big picture and chat about how your role will figure into that.

Find out more

FAQ

Whats the interview process like?

This is a big decision for both of us. If you join us, well spend a lot of time together working on some pretty cool things. Thats why weve designed a hiring process that allows everyone to make the right choice. Read more about how we hire here.

How can I prepare for my interview?

What happens to my personal data when I submit my application?

Who can I contact about accessibility needs for interviews?

If I get the job, what will my onboarding be like?

What are Pleos values?

Why does my application need to be in English?

Can I apply for more than one position?