OpenBao Developer

**This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for an OpenBao Developer based in Netherlands.**

This is an opportunity for an experienced Go Engineer to contribute to the development of OpenBao, an open-source identity-aware secrets management platform. You will work closely with senior engineering leadership to design, build, and maintain secure, high-performance backend capabilities that support modern cloud-native infrastructure. The role combines core systems engineering with security-focused development, architectural collaboration, and active open-source community participation. You will contribute to features such as secrets engines, authentication methods, plugins, and storage backends while helping strengthen software quality and release security. Working within a globally distributed engineering team, you will have the opportunity to influence technical direction and advance open-source security solutions. This is a full-time remote position requiring the right to work in the UK or EU.

Accountabilities:

• Design, develop, and maintain core OpenBao features, plugins, storage backends, and secrets engines using Go.
• Collaborate with engineering leadership on system architecture, technical design discussions, and the preparation of technical Request for Comments (RFCs).
• Break down complex feature roadmaps into clear, actionable engineering tasks and deliverables.
• Write clean, secure, maintainable, and high-performance Go code, following secure-by-design principles and cryptographic best practices.
• Review and address reported vulnerabilities, contributing to the security and reliability of the platform.
• Participate in upstream open-source development by reviewing pull requests, triaging issues, and supporting high-quality community contributions.
• Contribute to internal research and development projects, security tooling, and integration prototypes related to identity and secrets management.
• Develop comprehensive unit, integration, and security tests to maintain software quality and production reliability.
• Support CI/CD automation, release workflows, and supply chain security for OpenBao distribution artifacts.
• Collaborate with a distributed international team, coordinating effectively across time zones.

Requirements:

• Approximately 3–5+ years of backend or systems software engineering experience, with an intermediate to senior level of technical capability.
• Strong proficiency in Go (Golang), including production-grade development, concurrency patterns such as goroutines and channels, interface design, testing, and performance profiling.
• Solid understanding of systems engineering and software security fundamentals, including PKI/TLS, cryptographic concepts, authentication and authorization models, and API design.
• Ability to write secure, efficient, and maintainable backend code and contribute to architectural discussions.
• Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to work independently while collaborating effectively with other engineers.
• Direct experience with OpenBao or HashiCorp Vault is highly desirable, particularly familiarity with plugin architecture, storage drivers, dynamic secrets, or internal RPC mechanisms.
• Familiarity with Linux fundamentals, containerization technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes, and Infrastructure-as-Code tools such as Terraform or OpenTofu is an advantage.
• Previous contributions to open-source Go projects or security tooling are beneficial.
• Ability to coordinate working hours with a globally distributed team across the United States, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.
• Strong work ethic, intellectual curiosity, willingness to learn, emotional maturity, and respect for diverse perspectives.

Benefits:

• Annual salary of up to **£100,000**, plus bonus.
• Fully remote working arrangement.
• 33 days of paid holiday, including the standard 8 UK bank holidays.
• Enhanced parental leave.
• Private medical and dental insurance.
• Individual training and professional development budget.
• Funding for conferences, books, courses, coaching, and other learning opportunities.
• Access to internal training and knowledge-sharing initiatives.
• Opportunity to contribute to influential open-source security technology and collaborate with experienced engineers.