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India
Remote only
This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for an Intermediate Backend Engineer, Authorization based in India.
As an Intermediate Backend Engineer specializing in Authorization, you will contribute to building and maintaining the systems that control access to applications, data, and services across a large-scale DevSecOps platform. You will work on critical authorization infrastructure, ensuring that users, access tokens, and automated agents have the appropriate permissions while maintaining high standards of security and performance. Using Ruby on Rails, you will develop and improve permission models, access policies, and API authorization mechanisms. You will also contribute to the evolution of the platform's authorization architecture, including the integration of a new Rust-based policy engine. Working alongside experienced engineers in a fully remote and asynchronous environment, you will progressively take ownership of increasingly complex engineering projects. This is an opportunity to develop expertise in application security, distributed systems, and modern authorization technologies.
In this role, you will help develop, maintain, and modernize authorization systems while ensuring that access controls remain reliable, secure, and performant. Your main responsibilities will include:
Implement authorization features and improvements within a Ruby on Rails monolithic application, ensuring that legitimate access is granted and unauthorized access is consistently denied.
Deliver well-defined engineering projects, from feature-flagged implementation and rollout to validation of results, with guidance and code reviews from senior engineers.
Develop and extend fine-grained permission models for access tokens and custom roles, expanding authorization coverage across additional resources.
Improve authorization enforcement across GraphQL and REST APIs to ensure consistent application of permission rules.
Refactor existing policy code incrementally while preserving established behavior and avoiding disruptions for existing customers.
Investigate and resolve security vulnerabilities, reliability issues, and performance bottlenecks affecting authorization mechanisms.
Contribute to the migration toward a modern authorization architecture combining the existing application framework with a Rust-based policy engine.
Help validate that legacy and new authorization systems produce consistent permission evaluation results.
Collaborate with authentication, platform, and AI engineering teams to define and document interface contracts supporting a shared authorization service.
Participate in technical design discussions, prepare engineering documentation, contribute to merge requests, and review code asynchronously.
Incorporate feedback from code reviews and ensure that technical decisions and implementation approaches are clearly documented.
The ideal candidate is a backend engineer with solid Ruby on Rails experience, an understanding of application security, and an interest in developing scalable authorization systems. You should be comfortable working with existing codebases, making incremental improvements, and collaborating in an asynchronous engineering environment. The following qualifications are expected:
Approximately 2–4 years or more of professional experience building and maintaining production Ruby on Rails applications.
Hands-on experience with authorization concepts, including Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and fine-grained permissions, gained through professional work or personal projects.
Strong security mindset, with the ability to recognize authorization issues as potential security vulnerabilities and assess the impact of implementation changes.
Experience modifying established codebases through incremental refactoring and feature-flagged deployments while maintaining backward compatibility.
Familiarity with GraphQL and API authorization patterns.
Understanding of application performance, particularly the impact of repeated permission checks on request processing.
Ability to write clear technical documentation and communicate effectively in an asynchronous environment where decisions are primarily made through written discussions and merge requests.
Strong problem-solving skills and attention to detail, particularly when working on security-sensitive systems.
Ability to collaborate with experienced engineers, incorporate feedback, and progressively take ownership of technical projects.
Willingness to learn new technologies and contribute to the evolution of authorization infrastructure.
Additional experience that would be an advantage:
Hands-on experience with PostgreSQL.
Familiarity with Rust, gRPC, or Protocol Buffers.
Knowledge of Cedar or other policy languages.
Exposure to Zanzibar-style authorization systems.
Experience with Go or service-oriented architecture.
Background in identity management, policy engines, platform security, or related technical domains.
Fully remote working arrangement.
Flexible Paid Time Off (PTO).
Equity compensation and Employee Stock Purchase Plan.
Growth and Development Fund to support continuous learning and professional development.
Parental leave benefits.
Team Member Resource Groups that encourage inclusion, connection, and collaboration.
Benefits designed to support employee health, financial well-being, and personal development.
Opportunity to work with experienced engineers on large-scale, security-critical infrastructure.
Exposure to modern technologies, including Rust-based authorization engines and advanced access control architectures.
Fully asynchronous working environment that promotes flexibility, autonomy, and written collaboration.
Opportunity to integrate AI tools into daily engineering workflows and improve productivity through emerging technologies.
