Software Engineer, Data

At Keycard, we're building identity and access infrastructure for the agent-native era, where software isn't static but a dynamic, constantly changing system of AI agents working on behalf of people and businesses. Keycard gives every agent a verified identity and issues short-lived, task-scoped credentials at runtime, so agents can only do what they were asked to do, and every action is fully auditable. We're backed by a16z, Boldstart, and Acrew, and our founding team built and scaled Snyk, Auth0, HashiCorp, and Heroku.

The Role

We're hiring a Staff Data Engineer to design and build the operational data systems that power Keycard — the pipelines, storage layers, and APIs that drive near real-time enforcement, feedback loops, and customer insights. At Keycard, data isn't exhaust — it's core to the product.

The systems you build will serve both the transactional needs of our core identity services and the OLAP requirements that help organizations understand and improve their security posture. You'll balance streaming and batch paradigms — knowing when low-latency streaming is essential and when batch provides clarity and power. Your work will span from integrating external data sources to enabling policy evaluation to surfacing insights in dashboards and APIs.

You'll work directly with founders, product, and the engineers building our core services and SDKs. You'll have deep autonomy, accountability to deliver, and the chance to shape the data architecture of a category-defining company from the ground up.

What We're Looking For

• You have strong experience designing resilient pipelines that balance streaming and batch paradigms. You know when to use streaming for low-latency enforcement and when batch provides clarity and power, and you've built systems that satisfy both transactional and analytical requirements.

• You're a programmer at heart — fluent in Python, Go, and/or Rust, with experience building with Kafka, Parquet, and Iceberg. You think like a builder, not an operator, and you're excited to design APIs, pipelines, and storage systems end to end.

• You thrive in 0→1 environments. You make hard trade-offs to deliver today while laying groundwork for the long-term system, and you use iteration to accelerate the learning loop.

• You lead by example — raising the bar for technical excellence while helping those around you grow. You communicate clearly through written plans and async updates, and know when to jump on a call.

Strong Candidates May Also Have

• Experience designing and shipping developer-facing APIs, SDKs, or tools that expose data systems in ergonomic and powerful ways.

• Contributions to open source data infrastructure projects (Kafka, Flink, Iceberg) or experience building libraries used by other developers.

• Active experimentation with agents in your own workflows (Claude Code, Cursor, MCP) and opinions on how to make data systems agent-friendly.

• Strong opinions about the intersection of data, identity, and agents — and excitement about shaping that future at Keycard.

What We Offer

• Build at the Frontier: Work every day at the frontier of agent-native systems — shipping, inventing, and iterating on technology that hasn’t been built before. You’ll be given huge autonomy, the opportunity to gain mastery, and the chance to work in a team that holds each other accountable to succeed.

• Truly Agent-Native Culture: At Keycard, we don’t just enable others to adopt agents — we use them ourselves to build. You’ll help shape an organization that embeds AI into its foundation as an enduring competitive advantage.

• Compensation With Upside: Market-competitive salaries and generous equity packages (4-year vest, 1-year cliff) give you the security to focus on building — and the asymmetric upside of ownership in a company chasing a category-defining mission.

• Comprehensive Benefits & Recharge: Health, dental, vision, and paramedical coverage for you and your family, plus 4 weeks vacation, 11 statutory holidays, and 1 volunteer day annually. We encourage at least 2 weeks off each year to fully recharge.

• Tools That Keep You Ahead: A new MacBook Pro, a $500 stipend for peripherals, and the best AI tools available so you can work at the forefront of agent-native workflows.

• Remote-First Flexibility: We are a remote-first team prioritizing asynchronous collaboration, with hiring focused in North and South America. Work where you’re strongest — we just want the best.