Senior Full-Stack Engineer (Forward Deployed)
Posted yesterday
The role in short
Design, build, and deploy full-stack identity solutions for state governments and enterprise clients while serving as a technical advisor.
SpruceID builds privacy-preserving, standards-based digital identity and credentialing solutions that give individuals control of their information while enabling governments and enterprises to deliver secure, interoperable services. We partner with public-sector organizations to modernize how identity is issued, verified, and used.
We’re looking for a Senior Full-Stack Engineer to join our forward-deployed engineering team. You’ll work directly with state governments and public sector partners, and enterprise clients to design, build, and deploy impactful identity solutions. This role blends hands-on software development, technical consulting, and customer success: ideal for someone who thrives at the intersection of technology and mission-driven impact.
This is a fully remote role open to candidates based in the United States.
What You'll Do
- Design, build, and deploy full-stack solutions for state governments and public sector partners.
- Collaborate with customer delivery leads, engineers, and UX designers to ensure successful deployments.
- Translate customer requirements into technical architectures and production-ready systems.
- Serve as a trusted technical advisor for partners adopting open identity standards and privacy best practices.
- Build backend services and full-stack web or mobile apps that meet public sector security, privacy, and accessibility standards.
- Contribute to Rust codebases that run across backend, mobile, and browser environments.
- Manage customer deployments and provide post-launch technical support.
Qualifications
- 2+ years of experience building backend systems in statically typed languages (Rust, Go, C#, or Java).
- Strong background in modern web frontends (React, TypeScript, or similar) with an eye for accessibility and security.
- Proven ability to lead cross-functional engineering efforts and deliver production-grade systems.
- Strong appreciation for open-source software, standards-based design, and community-driven development.
- Hands-on experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and DevOps practices.
- Excellent communication skills and comfort working directly with customers or stakeholders.
- Based in the U.S., excited to collaborate with state government partners.
Nice to Have
- Experience with digital identity, cryptography, data privacy, or blockchain technologies (e.g., Verifiable Credentials, Decentralized Identifiers, OAuth, OpenID Connect).
- Familiarity with PostgreSQL, GraphQL, or RESTful API design and development.
- Understanding of CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code, and automation using Terraform, or similar tools.
- Exposure to mobile app development (React Native, Flutter, or similar frameworks).
- Experience in security engineering, access control, federated identity, or PKI systems.
- Prior work in public sector, government technology, or other high-compliance environments.
- Interest in usability, accessibility (WCAG, Section 508), and inclusive product design.
- Contributions to open-source projects or participation in digital identity standards bodies (W3C, DIF, IETF) is a plus.
At SpruceID, we value diversity of perspectives and backgrounds. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or veteran status.
Prep for this interview
4 questions likely to come up at SpruceID, each matched to a line in this posting.
- 1Cloud, deployment and security
They wrote: “Hands-on experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and DevOps practices.”
The customer's security team sends a 200-question review. How do you handle it?
How to answer
Why they ask: Security reviews often block deals. FDEs help get through them.
- Start from your company's standard answers (SOC 2 report, past reviews)
- Answer clearly; don't oversell
- Bring in your security team for anything you're unsure of
- Keep the new answers for the next customer
Tip: Reuse past answers, flag honest gaps, and offer a call for the hard questions.
- 2Discovery and scoping
They wrote: “Translate customer requirements into technical architectures and production-ready systems.”
Tell me about a time the customer asked for one thing but needed another.
How to answer
Why they ask: Good FDEs spot when a request is a guess at a solution. They want proof you can redirect a customer without losing their trust.
- What they asked for, and the detail that made you doubt it
- How you tested the doubt (shadowed users, looked at logs, ran a quick prototype)
- How you made the case to the customer
- What shipped and what changed for them
Tip: Pick a story where you checked your hunch with data or users before pushing back.
- 3Integrations and APIs
They wrote: “Experience with digital identity, cryptography, data privacy, or blockchain technologies (e.g., Verifiable Credentials, Decentralized Identifiers, OAuth, OpenID Connect).”
How would you set up single sign-on for a large customer?
How to answer
Why they ask: SSO (SAML or OAuth/OIDC) is a common first task in enterprise deals and a common source of delays.
- Confirm their identity provider (Okta, Entra ID, Google) and protocol
- Exchange metadata and test in a staging tenant first
- Map user groups to roles in your product
- Plan for user removal: what happens when someone leaves the company
Tip: Mention the people involved, and the protocol second. The customer's identity team usually controls the timeline.
- 4Coding
They wrote: “Strong background in modern web frontends (React, TypeScript, or similar) with an eye for accessibility and security.”
Here's a CSV export from a customer. Write a script that cleans it and loads it into our API.
How to answer
Why they ask: Very close to real FDE work. They watch how you handle bad rows and failures.
- Read with a proper CSV parser; check the header first
- Validate each row and collect errors, not crash on the first one
- Send in batches with retries and a clear report at the end
- Write one or two quick tests for the parsing
Tip: Talk through edge cases out loud: encodings, missing fields, duplicates, rate limits.
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