OpenBao Developer

<p><strong>Reports To:</strong> Delivery Manager, Head of OpenBao Development<br><strong>Employment Status:</strong> Full Time<br><strong>Salary:</strong> Up to £100k + bonus + benefits.&nbsp;</p> <h3><strong>Who is ControlPlane?</strong></h3> <p>ControlPlane is a London-headquartered consultancy specialising in cloud-native, Kubernetes, and open-source security solutions. Our expertise lies in helping organisations adopt and secure complex cloud infrastructures by implementing security measures that are "secure-by-design" and "secure-by-default." This engineering excellence drives ControlPlane deep into cybersecurity, providing services like zero-trust architectures, threat modeling, supply chain security, and platform engineering.</p> <p>We are acclaimed for our work in highly regulated industries, such as finance, healthcare, and national infrastructure. We help clients consume next-generation and open-source projects safely and securely. In addition to consulting, we are active contributors to the open-source community supporting projects like Flux CD, OpenBao, and FINOS AI Readiness.</p> <h3><strong>What We're Looking For</strong></h3> <p>We are seeking an Intermediate or Senior Go Engineer to join our open-source development team, working directly alongside our Head of OpenBao Development.</p> <p>In this role, you will focus on core backend development, designing, building, and maintaining new features for OpenBao, the open-source identity-aware secrets management platform.</p> <p>You will spend your time writing clean, secure, high-performance Go code, contributing to core architectural design discussions, building custom secrets engines and auth methods, and helping lead open-source community contributions on ControlPlane’s behalf. Prior experience working within the OpenBao codebase is a strong bonus, but strong Go systems engineering skills and an aptitude to learn are what matter most.</p> <h2><strong>What You'll Do</strong></h2> <h4><strong>OpenBao Core Development</strong></h4> <ul> <li>Feature Engineering: Design, write, and maintain core capabilities, plugins, storage backends, and secrets engines for OpenBao in Go.</li> <li>Collaboration: Partner directly with the Head of OpenBao Development to refine system architecture, author technical RFCs, and break down complex feature roadmaps into clear engineering deliverables.</li> <li>Secure Coding: Ensure all code adheres to strict cryptography best practices, memory management safety, and secure-by-design principles. Review and remediate any vulnerability reports.</li> </ul> <h4><strong>Open Source &amp; Upstream Maintenance</strong></h4> <ul> <li>Community Engagement: Participate in upstream open-source development, reviewing pull requests, triaging issue reports, and maintaining high standards for community contributions.</li> <li>Internal R&amp;D: Work on internal lab projects, security tooling, and integration prototypes that advance open-source identity and secrets management.</li> </ul> <h4><strong>Quality &amp; Testing</strong></h4> <ul> <li>Testing &amp; Automation: Write comprehensive unit, integration, and security tests for Go codebase changes to maintain reliability across production releases.</li> <li>Pipeline Hardening: Collaborate on CI/CD automation, release workflows, and supply chain security for OpenBao distribution artifacts.</li> </ul> <h2><strong>What We're Looking For</strong></h2> <h4><strong>Core Technical Capabilities</strong></h4> <ul> <li>Strong Go (Golang) Engineering: Solid experience writing production-grade Go code, with a strong understanding of concurrency (goroutines/channels), interface design, testing suites, and performance profiling.</li> <li>Systems &amp; Security Engineering: Solid understanding of software security fundamentals, such as PKI/TLS, cryptography concepts, authentication/authorization models, and API design.</li> <li>Experience Level: Intermediate to Senior software engineering background (typically 3–5+ years in backend systems development).</li> </ul> <h4><strong>Desirable / Bonus Experience</strong></h4> <ul> <li>OpenBao or Vault Experience: Direct experience with the OpenBao or HashiCorp Vault codebase (plugin architecture, storage drivers, dynamic secrets, or internal RPC mechanisms) is highly desirable, though not strictly required.</li> <li>Cloud-Native Infrastructure: Familiarity with Linux primitives, containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), and Infrastructure-as-Code tooling (Terraform/OpenTofu).</li> <li>Open Source Work: Previous track record of contributing to open-source Go projects or security tooling.</li> </ul> <h4><strong>Location &amp; Eligibility</strong></h4> <ul> <li>This is a global role, but candidates in our existing regions within Europe, North America, and APAC would be given priority</li> <li>Ability to align work hours with a global team across USA, NZ, UK.</li> </ul> <h3><strong>Benefits</strong></h3> <p>ControlPlane is a dynamic, cutting-edge and passionate business to work for. Our employees are at the heart of our business, which means we care about our culture, our people and their progression.</p> <p>Alongside this, as a colleague you will have the following benefits:</p> <ul> <li>Generous and competitive salary + Bonus</li> <li>33 days of paid holiday, including paid leave for the standard 8 UK Bank Holidays</li> <li>Enhanced Parental Leave</li> <li>Private Medical and Dental Insurance</li> <li>An individual training budget for personal development, including but not limited to:</li> <ul> <li>Conferences</li> <li>Training (books, courses, coaching, as well as internal training which is of course included beyond budget)</li> </ul> </ul> <h3><strong>Qualifications</strong></h3> <p>We believe our peers are equally as important as the technology we use. We're looking for people of the highest personal calibre: quietly confident, with a strong work ethic, keenness to learn, emotional maturity and respect, who understand that "we" is more than "me" and who embrace human diversity of all kinds.</p> <p>As we grow, you'll help us build a company culture of which we can all be proud. If you share these values, we want to hear from you!</p> <p><strong>NOTE FOR RECRUITMENT AGENCIES:</strong> Please do not call or email our team speculatively. We do not accept unsolicited CVs.</p> <p><br><br></p>