Senior Engineer, Agentic Identity
Baselayer is seeking a Senior Engineer to develop and maintain the KYA (Know Your Agent) cryptographic identity substrate, which replaces self-assertion with third-party-issued credentials for AI agents interacting with various entities. This role involves working on components such as issuer mint, edge verification, Passport, and Merkle audit log, contributing to the company's mission of enhancing trust and reducing fraud in financial transactions.
The Senior Engineer will be responsible for building and maintaining the runtime issuer/mint, implementing OAuth Token Exchange (RFC 8693), JWS credentials (RFC 7515/7519, SD-JWT-VC), and Merkle audit log with real-time revocation. Additional duties include evolving the wire format and claim registry, implementing sub-millisecond JWS verification and Web Bot Auth signature checks at the HTTP edge, and developing the Passport component, which serves as the user's cloud-resident principal account.
Candidates should have experience shipping systems where cryptographic correctness is critical, such as OAuth/OIDC IdP, token issuer, signing service, HSM-backed signer, or passkey/WebAuthn flow. Proficiency in Python and Go is required, with a strong understanding of RFCs related to JWK thumbprint canonicalization, pairwise-sub derivation, and Signature-Input header serialization. A deep understanding of the distinctions between identity and authorization, mandate and claim, snapshot and live state is essential.
The compensation package includes a salary range of $135,000 to $220,000, along with equity ranging from 0.05% to 0.25%. Benefits encompass flexible paid time off, 100% coverage of health, dental, and vision premiums, HSA contributions, a $250 annual gym stipend, and a transparent and inclusive company culture.
Baselayer is committed to rebuilding the foundational trust layer in financial transactions, offering a dynamic environment where engineers can work on impactful projects that address real-time entity resolution and fraud detection at scale. Joining Baselayer provides an opportunity to contribute to a high-growth startup alongside experienced founders and team members.