Staff Engineer (S) - Identity Governance & Administration (IGA)

Thrivent is a company committed to helping people thrive with purpose, and they are seeking a Staff Engineer specializing in Identity Governance & Administration (IGA). In this role, you will design and implement technical solutions to meet customer and compliance needs, while providing leadership and mentoring across IT methodologies.

Responsibilities:

• Apply expert industry knowledge and broad understanding of multiple disciplines with technical knowledge to drive secure and compliant outcomes for customers
• Design integrations across HRIS and directory systems (Workday, AD, AAD, etc.) and define software integration patterns that align to high-level engineering goals and governance requirements
• Architect automation workflows and visibility mechanisms to ensure compliance with audit frameworks and key controls
• Use independent, critical thinking to solve complex IGA problems significant to the enterprise
• Develop architecturally impactful components of integrations, entitlements, and automation scripts (PowerShell, Bash, SQL)
• Lead efforts to identify, incorporate, and define development frameworks and libraries useful to IGA solutions
• Seek out industry and technology knowledge along with best practices in identity governance, automation, and compliance
• Reverse-engineer undocumented vendor configurations and share insights with the team
• Coordinate design and integration of subsystems across the IGA ecosystem
• Participate in collaboration sessions to remove technical roadblocks and mentor junior engineers
• Contribute to technical user stories, specifications, and coding standards that emphasize governance outcomes
• Broker solution design and implementation across product teams to achieve secure and compliant outcomes
• Lead analytics initiatives such as role mining and optimization of rule structures
• Act as a subject matter expert in IGA operations and support processes to build resilient enterprise systems
• Ensure visibility and alerting mechanisms are in place for violations and key controls
• Help define the IGA roadmap and cross-system architecture
• Contribute to innovative automation solutions that align to strategic objectives and compliance frameworks
• Provide platform technology expertise to teams within the product group and across the organization
• Partner with the engineering community to establish best practices in IGA configuration, automation, and governance
• Share engineering standards across teams and mentor engineers to apply these patterns effectively
• Lead resolution of critical IGA incidents and proactively address product issues
• Continuously assess technology to build more stable, scalable, and resilient identity systems
• Promote and expand CI/CD pipelines to improve deployment and configuration processes
• Lead evaluation of IGA software solutions, advising on strengths and weaknesses of external platforms
• Provide summaries of how tools impact governance, compliance, and business processes
• Contribute to criteria for selecting the right platforms and software for the product team
• Provide technical leadership and mentoring to engineers of varying levels, with emphasis on governance-aware practices
• Deliver trainings and demos to address knowledge gaps in IGA tools and automation
• Engage in the tech community to build Thrivent’s technology brand and position as an employer of choice
• Participate in interviews and talent development, modeling Thrivent’s leadership competencies – courage, collaboration, and commitment
• Support a culture of continuous improvement, employee engagement, and unwavering commitment to clients, ensuring Thrivent’s trust and reputation remain strong

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or other technical field or equivalent work experience
• 10+ years of experience in engineering environments, with emphasis on identity governance and administration
• Experience architecting IGA solutions with requirements such as performance SLOs, high availability, reliability, security, and compliance
• Expertise in API integration, scripting (PowerShell, Bash, etc.), and query languages (SQL)
• Understanding of HRIS and directory integration patterns (Workday, AD, AAD)
• Ability to articulate and transfer complex ideas to a wide audience through both verbal and written communication
• Strong conceptual, critical thinking, technical and problem-solving skills with good attention to details
• Must be articulate and have the ability to meet with high level management to present and/or deliver technical documentation
• Master's degree in a related field
• Financial Services industry experience
• Coach / mentor other team members as appropriate