Introduction

At IBM Software, we transform client challenges into solutions. Building the world’s leading AI-powered, cloud-native products that shape the future of business and society. Our legacy of innovation creates endless opportunities for IBMers to learn, grow, and make an impact on a global scale. Working in Software means joining a team fueled by curiosity and collaboration. You’ll work with diverse technologies, partners, and industries to design, develop, and deliver solutions that power digital transformation. With a culture that values innovation, growth, and continuous learning, IBM Software places you at the heart of IBM’s product and technology landscape. Here, you’ll have the tools and opportunities to advance your career while creating software that changes the world.

Your role and responsibilities

As a Back-end Engineer II, you will contribute to the development of the Vault initiative, which expands our flagship security product to support secure, large-scale agent-based workloads. You will work as a core member of the US engineering team, collaborating closely with senior engineers and cross‑geography partners to build secure, reliable, and scalable components of Vault.

This role is hands-on and delivery focused. You will participate in design discussions, write high-quality code, and help ensure the systems we build meet the needs of our global customers.

Technical Contribution

• Implement features and enhancements within the Vault work stream.
• Contribute to design discussions by providing input, evaluating options, and implementing components defined by senior engineers.
• Write secure, maintainable, and well-tested code that adheres to engineering standards.
• Use AI-assisted development tools (e.g., code generation, automated refactoring, test scaffolding) to improve quality, velocity, and consistency in daily engineering work.

Team Collaboration

• Work closely with engineers across geos to ensure alignment on shared components.
• Participate in architecture reviews, code reviews, sprint ceremonies, and technical deep dives.
• Communicate progress clearly and raise risks or blockers proactively.

Cross-Geography Coordination

• Collaborate with cross‑time‑zone partners to integrate features, clarify requirements, and resolve technical issues.
• Actively incorporate feedback from senior engineers, tech leads, and product managers.

Hands-on Engineering

• Contribute to core identity and storage components of Vault, focusing on reliability, performance, and security.
• Participate in debugging, performance optimizations, incident analysis, and operational improvements.
• Help maintain documentation and ensure strong test coverage and observability for your areas of ownership.

Stakeholder Communication

• Provide timely updates to technical leads and engineering managers.
• Work with product managers to refine requirements and ensure clarity before implementation.

Required education

Bachelor's Degree

Preferred education

Master's Degree

Required technical and professional expertise

• Proficiency in one or more programming languages (Go, Rust, Java, Python, etc.).
• Solid understanding of APIs, and system design fundamentals.
• Familiarity with secure coding practices and interest in identity/security engineering.
• Experience using or willingness to adopt AI engineering tools—such as AI-assisted coding, automated documentation, code review assistance, and test generation—to improve productivity and code quality.
• Ability to work collaboratively within a distributed team environment.
• Debugging and Problem-Solving: Exposure to debugging customer-reported problems, designing, developing, and unit testing code fixes, and collaborating with stakeholders to resolve issues efficiently.
• Agile Environment Collaboration: Experience working in an Agile, collaborative environment, understanding stakeholder requirements, and aligning with team goals and objectives.

Preferred technical and professional experience

• Autonomous Systems Exposure: Interest or experience with AI agent orchestration or LLM-driven workflows.
• Policy & Governance Concepts: Exposure to policy-as-code frameworks or dynamic rules evaluation systems.
• Security Foundations: Familiarity with hardware-based trust anchors (TPM, Secure Enclaves) or workload attestation models.
• Open-Source & Standards Participation: Interest in contributing to open-source security ecosystems or identity standards bodies.