[Hiring] SSO & Keycloak Expert @The businesses of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany

Role Description

Your role: Build and evolve components in our self-developed identity and security platform used across 150+ global sites. As a Lead Developer, you’ll own the technical direction of key services (from design to production), lead by example in implementation, and work closely with a dedicated SRE team that runs and operates the solutions—so you can focus on building robust software.

• Lead the design and development of cloud-native services and platform components (security, IAM/SSO, data/observability).
• Translate product and security requirements into robust architectures and high-quality implementations.
• Drive engineering best practices (code quality, testing, reviews, CI/CD, secure-by-design).
• Collaborate with SREs to ensure reliability, scalability, and operational excellence (SLIs/SLOs, incident learnings, hardening).
• Mentor engineers and enable the team to deliver sustainably and confidently.

Qualifications

• Professional software engineering experience with ownership of production systems.
• Strong hands-on development skills (ideally Java; TypeScript and Go is a plus).
• Solid understanding of microservices and Kubernetes-based delivery.
• Good grasp of security fundamentals (authentication/authorization, secure coding; familiarity with SSO protocols like OIDC/OAuth/SAML is a plus).
• Experience working with modern platform components such as streaming, analytics, and observability stacks is beneficial.
• Interest or experience in IT security (e.g., threat modeling, secure architecture, vulnerability management, or security testing) is beneficial.
• Fluent in English (German is a plus).

Requirements

• Kubernetes, IaC, GitOps, and a self-hosted, cloud-native ecosystem.
• Other common technologies across the team: Kafka, Flink, Postgres, Neo4J, Grafana, Elasticsearch, plus Java, TypeScript, Go.
• Strong partnership with an experienced SRE team for operations and reliability.

Benefits

• Salary starts at 3.000 EUR and is dependent upon relevant experience.
• We are committed to creating access and opportunities for all to develop and grow at your own pace.
• Join us in building a culture of inclusion and belonging that impacts millions and empowers everyone to work their magic and champion human progress!