This article outlines the role of a Developer Support Engineer (DSE) at Okta. It details the technical scope, including protocols and SDKs, and clarifies the distinction between Developer Support and Professional Services.

• Developer Support
• Professional Services

The Developer Support Engineer serves as a technical partner within the Okta ecosystem. The role ensures that supported tools, SDKs, and protocols function correctly. Expertise covers the developer experience, ranging from protocol nuances to language-specific SDKs.

Core Pillars of Developer Support

• OAuth and OIDC Support: Modern identity relies on OAuth 2.0 and OIDC. Implementing these standards in custom applications presents challenges. DSEs assist in debugging authentication flows, understanding grant types, and configuring tokens. The goal is to ensure the implementation adheres to protocol standards and interacts correctly with Okta.

• Working with Okta SDKs: Okta provides a library of SDKs across multiple technology stacks, including JavaScript, React, Angular, Java, .NET, Python, and Go. The team investigates, reproduces, and resolves issues specifically related to these libraries.

• Cloud SCIM Troubleshooting: SCIM is the standard for automating user provisioning. DSEs guide the troubleshooting of provisioning, authentication, and connectivity errors between Okta and downstream applications.

• Okta Integration Network (OIN) Submission Guidance: The OIN allows Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) to publish apps. DSEs answer technical queries regarding OIN submissions, specifically focusing on validating OIDC, SCIM, and Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) implementations required for publication.
  
  

The Scope of Support: Break/Fix vs. Implementation

It is necessary to distinguish between the Developer Support role and Professional Services (PS).

Developer Support (DSE)

The mandate is Break/Fix and Guidance.

• Focus: Identifies bugs, troubleshoots error messages, explains documentation, and provides guidelines on customization feasibility.

• Example: If code using the Okta OIDC Middleware throws a 401 Unauthorized error, a DSE helps debug the error and check the configuration.

Professional Services (PS)

The mandate is Implementation and Solution Delivery.

• Focus: Writes production-ready code, architects end-to-end solutions, and performs implementations of custom use cases.

• Example: If a fully functional custom login portal is required, PS scopes the project and writes the code.

Summary of Differences