Senior Software Development Engineer, Authentication

Job Description:

At Remitly, we believe everyone deserves the freedom to access, move, and manage their money wherever life takes them. Since 2011, we've tirelessly delivered on our promise to customers sending money globally, providing secure, simple, and reliable ways to manage their money, ensuring true peace of mind. Whether it's supporting loved ones back home, growing a business across continents, or pursuing new opportunities abroad, we're not just here to move money— we're here to move our global customers forward.

We're looking for builders, reimaginers, and global thinkers who want to work at the intersection of technology, trust, and transformation. If that's you and you're ready to do the most meaningful work of your career—we invite you to join over 2,800 passionate Remitlians worldwide who are united by our vision to transform lives with trusted financial services that transcend borders.

About the Role:

Remitly's Authorization Team builds the secure, scalable, and high-performance access control systems that protect every customer interaction across Remitly's platform. As a security engineering expert on this team, you will own the design and evolution of our authorization infrastructure — the systems that determine what every user, service, and partner can and cannot do. You will become a product expert and have the opportunity to influence key decisions that shape the charters you work in. You'll collaborate with engineers, product managers, and compliance experts to deliver solutions that enforce least-privilege access, meet regulatory requirements, and empower our customers to trust Remitly as their preferred financial platform. You will report to the Senior Engineering Manager in Vancouver.

You Will:

• Design, maintain and own authorization infrastructure — including access control frameworks, policy engines, and entitlement systems — ensuring correctness, reliability, and high-performance at scale.
• Lead threat modeling and security design reviews for authorization systems and their integrations, applying adversarial thinking to stress-test access control decisions before they reach production.
• Define and enforce security architecture standards across engineering teams that consume authorization services, acting as a trusted security authority and partner.
• Collaborate with engineering, product, and compliance teams to define and deliver technical solutions from concept through launch and support.
• Develop and improve RBAC, ABAC, and policy-as-code models, driving high standards of quality, maintainability, and observability.
• Proactively identify and remediate security vulnerabilities in access control systems, including privilege escalation risks, insecure direct object references, and broken access control patterns.
• Contribute to the team's technical strategy, code reviews, and ongoing process improvements.
• Champion Remitly's values by fostering inclusion, mentoring peers, and elevating engineering practices.
• Support customers onboarding onto the Authorization platform.

You Have:

• A BS in Computer Science or equivalent professional experience.
• 8+ years of experience in backend and/or distributed systems engineering (e.g., Java, Go, Node.js, TypeScript)
• Have deep expertise in access control models, authorization system design, and applied security engineering — not just as a user of security services, but as an owner and builder of them.
• Hands-on experience with authorization frameworks and access control patterns, including RBAC, ABAC, ReBAC, and policy languages such as Cedar or OPA/Rego.
• A track record of conducting threat modeling and security design reviews for distributed systems, with familiarity with common attack patterns against authorization systems (e.g., privilege escalation, IDOR, broken access control).
• Experience designing and operating high-scale, low-latency authorization decision systems where correctness and availability are both non-negotiable.
• Experience collaborating with product, engineering, and compliance partners to deliver high-impact, security-critical solutions.
• The ability to deliver high-quality, well-tested code, and a track record of solving challenging security problems with thoughtful trade-offs.

The starting base salary range for this position is typically $180,000-$225,000, with equity included as part of Remitly’s total compensation plan. Your recruiter can share more information about benefits, equity, and the full compensation package. Compensation may vary depending on location and level.

Our Benefits

• Four weeks vacation
• Health Benefits
• Mental Health & Family Forming Benefits
• RRSP plan with company match
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP)
• Life Insurance & Disability
• Continuing education and travel benefits

Our Connected Work Culture: Driving Innovation, Together

At Remitly, we believe that true innovation sparks when we come together. Our "Connected Work Culture" fosters dynamic in-person collaboration, where ideas ignite and challenging problems find solutions faster. For corporate team members, we have an in-office expectation of at least 50% of the time monthly, typically achieved by coming in three days a week. This creates consistent, meaningful overlap that supports team norms and business needs. Managers also have the flexibility to set higher expectations based on their team's specific needs. These intentional in-office moments are vital for deepening relationships, fueling creativity, and ensuring your impact is felt where it matters most.

Remitly is an E-Verify Employer

At Remitly, we are dedicated to ensuring that our workplace offers equal employment opportunities to all employees and candidates, in full compliance with applicable laws and regulations.

Remitly is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.

Remitly is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.