Software Engineer III – Platform Services

Software Engineer III – Platform Services Position Summary This is a mid-level individual contributor on the Platform Services team. This role focuses on building and maintaining the foundational systems that power identity, authentication, and integration capabilities across MeridianLink's multi-product SaaS platform. Platform Foundation is a small, high-output team. It runs lean by design, with the expectation that the right combination of engineering depth and AI-assisted tooling can achieve platform-scale impact with a minimal footprint. Engineers here are expected to understand the systems they own deeply enough to identify what needs to be built next, flag problems before they become incidents, and ship with the kind of care that keeps downstream product teams unblocked. The immediate focus of this role is federated identity and authorization infrastructure. The work ahead involves building and extending the platform services that product teams depend on to authenticate users, enforce authorization, and manage access at scale. A strong candidate for this role has hands-on experience with OAuth 2.0, OIDC, SAML, and JWT, understands how authorization frameworks work in practice, and knows what it takes to integrate identity services into real-world applications. Equally important is how this person approaches their craft. Platform Services run with AI-assisted workflows as a first-class part of how software gets designed, validated, and delivered. Engineers on this team are expected to be fluent users of AI development tools, not just passive consumers of them. If you want a role where AI is a force multiplier and not an afterthought, this team is built around that idea. This is a fully remote role. Key Competencies At this level, competencies reflect technical ownership of well-defined work, growing independence, and the beginning of a mentorship posture toward more junior engineers. Technical Execution & Delivery Delivers features end-to-end with limited guidance; takes a scoped requirement through design, implementation, testing, and production release Independently identifies edge cases and failure modes within the scope of assigned work Writes clean, maintainable code and participates actively in code review with constructive, specific feedback Proactively surfaces blockers or ambiguities rather than waiting for check-ins Identity & Authorization Systems Applies practical knowledge of federated identity standards including OAuth 2.0, OIDC, SAML 2.0, and JWT Understands how authorization frameworks function: how they enforce policies, how they integrate into upstream and downstream services, and how access decisions are modeled and evaluated Reasons clearly about token lifecycle, session management, and the security implications of identity design choices Integration Engineering Understands the mechanics of connecting distributed services in a multi-product platform environment Builds and maintains integrations that are observable, fault-tolerant, and respectful of downstream consumers Writes and works with API contracts (REST, event-driven patterns) with attention to versioning and backwards compatibility AI-Forward Engineering Actively uses AI-assisted development tools (Claude Code, Codex, etc.) to accelerate design, implementation, and validation Participates in building and improving AI-assisted workflows and evaluation harnesses that improve the team's delivery throughput Stays current on how AI tooling is evolving and brings new approaches to the team where they apply Craft & Professionalism Writes tests with enough coverage to catch regressions without over-engineering the test suite Contributes to operational health: monitors what they've shipped, responds to issues, and follows incidents to resolution Documents what needs to be documented; keeps tribal knowledge out of individual heads and into shared systems Expected Duties Identity & Authorization Platform Development Build and extend platform services that manage federated identity, authentication flows, and authorization enforcement across MeridianLink products Implement integrations with the centralized identity platform, including token handling, session management, user provisioning, and tenant configuration Support product teams through their integration process: help them understand the platform's contracts, debug integration issues, and navigate edge cases in multi-tenant identity behavior Build the tooling, documentation, and examples that make those integrations repeatable and self-service over time Integration Engineering Design and implement backend service integrations using common patterns (REST APIs, event-driven messaging, webhook delivery) in Python Build with multi-product and multi-tenant scenarios in mind: data isolation, tenant-scoped configuration, and cross-product user identity are properties of the platform, not edge cases Participate in API design reviews with attention to clarity, contract stability, and developer experience for downstream consumers AI-Assisted Delivery Use AI development tools as an active part of the delivery workflow: for code generation, design validation, test scaffolding, and investigation Contribute to AI harness development that helps the team move faster and catch regressions without proportionally increasing manual effort Share what's working across the team; help establish repeatable patterns for AI-assisted engineering on Platform Foundation Engineering Craft & Observability Write tests at the unit, integration, and acceptance level appropriate to what's being built Instrument services for observability: structured logging, metrics, and alerting that make production behavior visible and actionable Participate in on-call rotations and follow incidents through to root cause and remediation Collaboration & Growing Others Participate in design discussions and code reviews; give and receive feedback constructively Provide mentorship and review support to L1 and L2 engineers on the team Contribute to internal documentation, runbooks, and onboarding materials Qualifications: Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities Required Qualifications Experience: 3-5 years of professional software engineering experience, with demonstrated ability to own and deliver features independently in a production environment Hands-on experience building backend services in .NET or Python, including RESTful API development Demonstrated experience implementing or integrating with federated identity systems using OAuth 2.0, OIDC, SAML 2.0, and/or JWT in production applications Practical understanding of authorization frameworks: how policies are modeled, enforced, and integrated into application and platform services Technical Skills: Proficiency in .NET or Python for backend service development; familiarity with modern API frameworks (e.g., .NET 9+, FastAPI, etc.) Working knowledge of identity protocol mechanics: authorization code flow, token introspection, claims-based access, assertion handling, and SSO logout behavior Experience with multi-tenant SaaS integration patterns, including tenant-scoped configuration and user identity across application boundaries Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS preferred), including relevant managed services for networking, compute, and secrets management Proficiency with standard development tooling: Git, CI/CD pipelines, containerization (Docker), and automated testing Active use of AI-assisted development tools (Claude Code, Codex, or equivalent) as part of a daily engineering workflow Preferred Qualifications Identity & Authorization Depth: Prior experience working with a commercial or open-source identity platform (e.g., an OIDC provider, IAM system, or enterprise SSO solution) in an engineering capacity, not just as a consumer Experience modeling and implementing fine-grained authorization: RBAC, ABAC, or policy-based access control systems Familiarity with token security considerations including signing, expiration, revocation, and safe storage patterns Regulated or Platform Environments: Prior experience building software in a financial services, fintech, or otherwise regulated technology environment Experience building internal platform capabilities used by other engineering teams, not just end-user-facing features Exposure to SOC 2 or similar compliance frameworks from an engineering perspective AI-Assisted Engineering: Experience contributing to AI harnesses, evaluation pipelines, or tooling that improves engineering workflow throughput Comfort using AI tools not just for code completion but for design exploration, test generation, and investigation Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent demonstrated experience What Success Looks Like A successful hire integrates quickly into the team's delivery rhythm, picks up the identity and integration domain with focus, and begins shipping production contributions within the first weeks. Within the first few months, they have built enough context to work largely independently on scoped features, are participating meaningfully in code reviews, and have demonstrated the kind of operational ownership -- shipping, monitoring, and standing behind their work -- that keeps a small team running well. Over time, impact is measured by the quality and reliability of what they've shipped, how much they've reduced the platform's dependence on tribal knowledge, and how effectively they've supported product teams integrating with the identity platform. Engineers who thrive here do so because they care about the craft, want to operate at the leading edge of AI-assisted development, and are motivated by building infrastructure that other teams depend on to deliver real product value.