Hi, Okta Community! I’m excited to share a new member spotlight with you. This series aims to highlight and acknowledge stand-out individuals within the Okta Community. Today, we discuss Vidyaa’s journey with Okta, how she found the Community, and some tips and tricks for using Okta’s products and solutions. 

Could you tell us a bit about yourself and your background? 

I'm a Senior IAM Engineer at RAAH Technologies, where I've been for about a year and a half. My background is in Identity and Access Management. I've been working in this space for over six years, with a focus on IGA platforms, governance implementation, and end-to-end identity program delivery.

My day-to-day work spans the full technical stack of an IAM engagement. I architect solutions, design Joiner-Mover-Leaver flows, build integrations between identity platforms and target applications, and help clients translate governance principles into systems that actually work for their environment. I work across platforms, Saviynt, Entra ID, etc., and my goal on any engagement is the same: create clarity around access where there was confusion, and build something sustainable.

What I find most interesting about IAM is that it's rarely just a technology problem. The governance logic, the audit requirements, the access model, all of that has to translate into something real that organizations can operate. That translation is where most projects succeed or struggle.

Can you tell us about your journey with Okta? What organizational challenges are you trying to solve with Okta?

My journey with Okta is honest: I'm in the middle of it. I came to Okta from the IGA side of the house. My background spans platforms like Saviynt, SailPoint, and Entra ID, but the reality of enterprise environments is that Okta is almost always somewhere in the stack. I kept running into the boundary of my Okta knowledge. I could speak fluently to the governance layer, but not the identity layer feeding it. That gap bothered me.

I'm also a strong believer in being tool-agnostic. Clients come from different environments and have different needs. Being able to advise credibly across the identity stack, not just the piece you happen to know best, is what makes you actually useful. So I made a deliberate decision to build Okta fluency alongside my existing IGA expertise.

In terms of challenges, the pattern I see repeatedly is organizations that have implemented SSO and basic lifecycle management but haven't connected that identity layer to a meaningful governance program. They know who their users are, but they can't answer the harder questions: who has access to what, is that access appropriate, and how do we prove it to an auditor? That gap between identity management and identity governance is the problem I find most interesting to solve.

Let’s switch gears and talk about the Oka Community. How did you first learn about the Oka Community? What do you enjoy the most about it?

I came to the Okta Community through RAAH Technologies, we're an Okta partner, and community resources naturally became part of how I approached learning the platform. As I started going deeper into Okta Learning and working toward skill badges and certifications, the community became a more active part of how I filled in gaps.

What I value most is the practitioner-to-practitioner knowledge sharing. Documentation tells you what a feature does. The community tells you what actually happens when you implement it in a messy enterprise environment, and that's where the real learning happens.

What are your plans for Okta certification?

I've already earned the Okta Certified Professional designation, and I'm currently working toward the Okta Certified Administrator certification. Beyond that, I'm focused on building depth in Okta Identity Governance, which maps directly to the IGA work I do across my engagements.

My goal isn't credentials for their own sake. It's competence. I want to be fluent enough in Okta to advise clients running Okta environments the same way I advise clients on other platform implementations. Certifications are how I validate that I've actually gotten there, not just that I've read the documentation.

Thank you for sharing your professional journey with us. It’s inspiring to see your dedication to learning and Okta products and solutions. I would love to end by learning a bit about your personal life. Outside of work, what do you enjoy doing?

Identity stays with me outside of work, honestly. After seeing how inconsistently IAM maturity assessments were being delivered to clients with lots of spreadsheets, scores with no context, and recommendations that collected dust, I built AXIS, a free IAM maturity assessment tool. It evaluates organizations across nine domains, provides a benchmarked score, with benchmark intelligence grounded in published research, and helps teams understand not just where they stand but where to focus next. You can try it at axis.identara.ca.

Outside of that, I'm currently reading Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, a science fiction novel that takes its ideas seriously, which I appreciate. I also enjoy a good movie, trying new restaurants, and spending time with my pets, a dog with a strong and well-documented aversion to walking, and two cats I adore.

Vidyaa’s way of using Okta is truly inspiring. Her tips on using community resources and tackling technical issues are super helpful. We love that you already hold a certification and can't wait to support you on your journey to earning another one. Thanks for sharing your story with us today!

If you’d like to share your story, get in touch with Community@okta.com=