Principal AI Ecosystem Architect - OpenAI/Anthropic

Secure Every Identity, from AI to Human Identity is the key to unlocking the potential of AI. Okta secures AI by building the trusted, neutral infrastructure that enables organizations to safely embrace this new era. This work requires a relentless drive to solve complex challenges with real-world stakes. We are looking for builders and owners who operate with speed and urgency and execute with excellence. This is an opportunity to do career-defining work. We're all in on this mission. If you are too, let's talk. THE OPPORTUNITY As organizations successfully adopt phishing-resistant MFA, attackers have shifted their tactics—increasingly deploying Adversary-in-the-Middle (AiTM) phishing kits and info-stealer malware to execute session hijacking via cookie theft. Furthermore, with the explosive rise of autonomous AI workloads, securing human identity is no longer enough; we must now protect and govern a fast-growing sprawl of non-human, agentic workflows. We are looking for a highly mature, technically elite, and customer-obsessed Identity Solutions Architect to drive the technical execution of our Identity Security & Agentic Identity portfolio. In this role, you will be a cornerstone of the "Okta on Okta" team, acting as Customer Zero. Reporting directly to the VP of IAM, you will work hand-in-hand with our Principal Product Managers. While the PM shapes the portfolio strategy, you will own the technical architecture, internal deployment blueprints, and the public stage. You will shepherd cutting-edge features from Alpha through Early Availability (EA)—guaranteeing we are our own first and best customer before these solutions scale to the rest of the world. KEY PORTFOLIO FOCUS AREAS As the Identity Solutions Architect, you will architect the technical blueprints and deployment strategies for Okta’s premier identity security offerings across both our workforce and developer platforms: * AI Agent & Agentic Identity Security: Architecting how Okta governs non-human, autonomous AI workloads across O4AA (Okta for AI Agents) and A4AA (Auth0 for AI Agents), defining secure authentication and authorization patterns. * Next-Gen Guardrails: Designing token exchange patterns, security gateways, and implementing the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to secure agent-to-data interactions. * Hardware-Bound Session Security: Designing Okta’s defense against session cookie thievery by leveraging cryptographically hardware-bound tokens (Okta DBSSO and Chrome DBSC). * Advanced Threat & Posture Management: Deploying Identity Threat Protection (ITP) for continuous risk evaluation and Identity Security Posture Management (ISPM) to eliminate hidden vulnerabilities across human and machine identities. * Identity Governance & Administration (IGA): Designing and enforcing modern access governance, including automated lifecycle management, self-service access request workflows, and continuous access certification using Okta Identity Governance. * Privileged Access Management (PAM): Architecting secure, just-in-time (JIT) access to critical infrastructure, managing secrets, and securing privileged sessions using Okta Privileged Access. WHAT YOU’LL BE DOING (YOUR IMPACT) * Governance & Privileged Access Leadership: Lead the internal Customer Zero deployment of Okta IGA and PAM. You will blueprint workflows for least-privilege access, ensuring robust compliance and security over Okta's most sensitive administrative, server, and infrastructure entitlements. * Customer Zero Lifecycle Execution (Alpha to EA): Act as the lead architect testing and deploying Alpha identity security features within Okta’s internal IAM environment. Author the technical rollout blueprints and provide the core engineering teams with critical feedback. * Anti-Session Hijacking Architecture: Design the internal implementation blueprint for how Okta DBSSO and Chrome DBSC complement one another, creating an ironclad, layered defense that protects corporate endpoints from token and cookie exfiltration. * Open-Source & Community Leadership: Lead the technical effort to open-source the complimentary tools our Customer Zero team builds, transitioning our internal innovations into a massive, thriving community effort with our customers. * Thought Leadership & Personal Brand: Take the microphone. You will help lead a dedicated "how-to" video series and a potential podcast this year, and take the stage at major events to share our internal playbook. * Ecosystem Integration: Define how Okta identity is woven into modern orchestration layers (LangChain/Graph, n8n, AWS AgentCore, Google Vertex ADK) and model providers (Azure Foundry, AWS Bedrock, OpenAI, Anthropic). MASSIVE INDUSTRY COLLABORATION As the technical face of Okta’s Customer Zero team, you will have unique, high-impact opportunities to collaborate closely with strategic engineering and identity infrastructure teams at major enterprise tech companies, leading cloud service providers, and top-tier security vendors. WHAT YOU’LL BRING TO THE ROLE * Professional Maturity & Architecture Expertise: 8+ years of overall IT/software development and technical architecture experience, with 3+ years specifically focused on IAM/Security Architecture. You have a proven track record of securing non-human identities (NHIs) or machine-to-machine infrastructure in production. * Governance & PAM Experience: Demonstrated experience deploying Identity Governance (IGA) and Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions, including just-in-time (JIT) access, infrastructure security, lifecycle management, and access certification. * Protocol & Threat Literacy: Knowledge of core protocols: OAuth2/OIDC (especially Token Exchange), SAML, mTLS, JWT, and Model Context Protocol (MCP). Strong technical understanding of modern identity threat vectors (AiTM phishing, info-stealer malware, session hijacking). * Technical Influence: The ability to author clear Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) and confidently influence at the VP/CTO level, serving as a true peer to product management and product engineering. * Executive Presence & Communication: Elite verbal and written communication skills. You can translate deep, ambiguous technical architecture into compelling business value for C-suite executives and excel in front of a camera or a live audience. WORK-LIFE BALANCE & TRAVEL We highly value work-life balance and protect our team's time. Travel is limited and generally planned well in advance. Your travel footprint will primarily consist of Oktane (our flagship conference) and Oktane on the Road. WHY THIS ROLE IS DIFFERENT This role gives you the backing of a world-class security leader, the freedom to contribute to open source, a public platform to build your personal brand, and the elite challenge of securing the next frontier of identity.   #P25449_3486113 #LI - hybrid The Okta Experience * Supporting Your Well-Being  * Driving Social Impact  * Developing Talent and Fostering Connection + Community We are intentional about connection. Our global community, spanning over 20 offices worldwide, is united by a drive to innovate. Your journey begins with an immersive, in-person onboarding experience designed to accelerate your impact and connect you to our mission and team from day one. Okta is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, ancestry, marital status, age, physical or mental disability, or status as a protected veteran. We also consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and convictions records, consistent with applicable laws. If reasonable accommodation is needed to complete any part of the job application, interview process, or onboarding please use this Form to request an accommodation. Notice for New York City Applicants & Employees: Okta may use Automated Employment Decision Tools (AEDT), as defined by New York City Local Law 144, that use artificial intelligence, machine learning, or other automated processes to assist in our recruitment and hiring process. In accordance with NYC Local Law 144, if you are an applicant or employee residing in New York City, please click here to view our full NYC AEDT Notice.

Airbnb was born in 2007 when two hosts welcomed three guests to their San Francisco home, and has since grown to over 5 million hosts who have welcomed over 2 billion guest arrivals in almost every country across the globe. Every day, hosts offer unique stays and experiences that make it possible for guests to connect with communities in a more authentic way. ABOUT THE ROLE We are seeking a seasoned Principal AI/ML Researcher and Engineer with deep expertise in Bayesian Learning, and Distributional Reinforcement Learning (RL) to lead the advanced research and development of cutting-edge intelligence AI models. These systems will integrate foundational Bayesian frameworks with advanced architectures, including Mixture of Models, multi-pass sharded systems, multitask and multi-objective optimization, and external knowledge incorporation. Additionally, the role involves innovating ways to interoperate and integrate Large Language Models (LLMs) and Large Multimodal Models (LMMs) with Reasoning, Planning, and Decisioning abilities into the Bayesian frameworks to create a seamless foundational model fabric that synergizes with diverse model ecosystems.The role will require ensuring these models and supporting systems perform efficiently at scale, integrating them into live systems that directly impact product and user experience. Our goal is to build next-generation AI platforms that redefine personalization, decision-making, and intelligence across diverse applications. You will work on developing production-level systems, collaborate with cross-functional teams, and play a pivotal role in shaping our AI/ML strategy.  RELEVANCE AND IMPACT OF THIS ROLE  This role drives Airbnb's evolution toward probabilistic, uncertainty-aware intelligence systems capable of reasoning under ambiguity and learning continuously from dynamic environments. The near-term impact spans improved personalization quality, ranking quality, uncertainty estimation, and adaptive decision-making across guest and host experiences — enabling policy-driven intelligence that handles long-tail discovery, evolving preferences, and complex marketplace dynamics. Longer term, this role helps establish Airbnb's leadership in adaptive probabilistic intelligence by building the foundational substrate that connects Bayesian learning, reinforcement learning, foundational models, multi-agent orchestration, and large-scale personalization into a unified adaptive architecture — where AI systems continuously balance exploration, exploitation, uncertainty, and ecosystem optimization at scale. WHAT YOU WILL DO RESEARCH & INNOVATION: * Lead groundbreaking applied research in Bayesian systems, distributional reinforcement learning, and multi-modal architectures to drive novel advances in AI and Foundational Intelligence (Ranking, Recommendations, Personalization) to fill out gaps in the Long Tail Curve of Discovery in order to grow the Business Offerings on both Guest and Host Long Tail Ends * Bridge the gap between theoretical AI/ML advancements and real-world production systems * Ensure that new research can be effectively applied and scaled to meet practical needs. ARCHITECT AND DESIGN: * Define and drive the architecture of large-scale Bayesian Framework-based AI systems at Airbnb. * Develop multi-pass sharded Bayesian + Discriminative/Generative single to multi agent systems for scale and efficiency. * Incorporate Mixture of Models and Agents, multitask learning, multi-objective optimization, and external knowledge systems into model designs. * Innovate methods to interoperate with LLMs, LRMs, LMMs, and transformer-based architectures, ensuring seamless integration and collaboration within the AI ecosystem using AI Multi-Agentic Frameworks. MODEL DEVELOPMENT: * Build and refine Bayesian or Markovian Graph chains to incorporate uncertainty estimation, adaptive decision-making, and probabilistic reasoning. * Develop foundational models by merging Bayesian techniques with Classical ML with L[L/M/R]Ms and other advanced architectures, ensuring compatibility and synergy. * Continuously improve systems for scalability, performance, and robustness, enabling models to absorb and adapt to diverse data sources and paradigms. TECHNICAL LEADERSHIP: * Lead technical direction and strategy for AI/ML systems. * Influence cross-functional teams, including engineering leaders, product managers, and data scientists, to adopt unified intelligence platform approaches. * Perform code reviews, mentor engineers, and champion best practices in AI/ML. COLLABORATION: * Work with structured and unstructured data to design models for diverse use cases. * Collaborate with cross-functional partners to identify opportunities, refine requirements, and drive impactful solutions. * Translate complex technical decisions into business value. OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE: * Develop, productionize, and maintain scalable AI/ML pipelines, including batch and real-time use cases. * Implement advanced model evaluation systems, including interpretability, hyperparameter optimization, and drift detection. * Ensure system reliability and performance through rigorous testing and validation. MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS * Master's degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, or a related technical field (or equivalent practical experience). * 15+ years of technical experience in Applied Machine Learning, including producing code and deploying production systems. * Strong programming skills in Python, Scala, Java, or C++, with expertise in AI/ML frameworks (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch). * Proven experience with Bayesian Neural Networks, Bayesian Learning, and Reinforcement Learning. * Strong math background in probability, statistics, and optimization. * Experience with building scalable AI/ML systems using technologies like Spark, Kafka, and distributed architectures. * Familiarity with advanced ML techniques, including Mixture of Models, Ensemble Techniques, multitask learning, and sharded architectures. PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS * Ph.D. in a relevant technical field with 15+ years of experience in AI/ML research and engineering. * Expertise in architecting and leading large-scale AI/ML systems with enterprise-level impact. * Hands-on experience with multitask and multi-objective optimization systems. * Experience in designing knowledge-driven systems and integrating external knowledge sources. * Familiarity with foundational models, transformers, and their role in interoperating with Bayesian systems. * Exceptional leadership, collaboration, and communication skills in complex, matrixed organizations. * Strong track record of publishing research or developing novel AI/ML techniques. Your Location: This position is US - Remote Eligible. The role may include occasional work at an Airbnb office or attendance at offsites, as agreed to with your manager. While the position is Remote Eligible, you must live in a state where Airbnb, Inc. has a registered entity. Click here for the up-to-date list of excluded states. This list is continuously evolving, so please check back with us if the state you live in is on the exclusion list . If your position is employed by another Airbnb entity, your recruiter will inform you what states you are eligible to work from. Our Commitment To Inclusion & Belonging: Airbnb is committed to working with the broadest talent pool possible. We believe diverse ideas foster innovation and engagement, and allow us to attract creatively-led people, and to develop the best products, services and solutions. All qualified individuals are encouraged to apply. We strive to also provide a disability inclusive application and interview process. If you are a candidate with a disability and require reasonable accommodation in order to submit an application, please contact us at: reasonableaccommodations@airbnb.com. Please include your full name, the role you’re applying for and the accommodation necessary to assist you with the recruiting process.  We ask that you only reach out to us if you are a candidate whose disability prevents you from being able to complete our online application. How We'll Take Care of You: Our job titles may span more than one career level. The actual base pay is dependent upon many factors, such as: training, transferable skills, work experience, business needs and market demands. The base pay range is subject to change and may be modified in the future. This role may also be eligible for bonus, equity, benefits, and Employee Travel Credits.   Pay Range $296,000—$370,000 USD