Are you ready to unlock intelligence?
If you don’t think you meet all of the criteria below but are still interested in the job, please apply. Nobody checks every box - we’re looking for candidates that are particularly strong in a few areas, and have some interest and capabilities in others.
About the role:
You will join the engineering team that builds the Kong AI gateway, empowering companies and developers around the world to govern every step of their AI & LLM based innovation.
As a Senior Software Engineer in the AI Gateway Team, you will be working on core features such as multi-LLM routing and balancing, semantic caching and routing, MCP, and more.
What you'll be doing:
Responsible for designing, building and maintaining API management software for AI and LLMs and its underlying stack.
Architecture, design, and implement new innovative features including proxying capabilities, load balancing, databases support that extend Kong AI Gateway’s offering.
Bugs troubleshooting, performance tuning and low-level optimizations.
Fill the gaps between Kong and third-party deployment platforms and tooling.
Mentor junior members of the team.
Any additional tasks required by the manager.
What you'll bring:
5+ years of programming in server-side applications and components.
Experience designing, prototyping, building and debugging applications that are highly scalable, distributed, reliable and resilient.
Solid hands-on low-level technical expertise in Linux systems troubleshooting, and profiling.
Experience in distributed systems, Linux networking stack and computer systems programming, Kong works with APIs on both L7 and L4 transports and protocols, so this expertise and knowledge are required.
Comfortable working with a remotely distributed team.
Strong sense of ownership and excellent verbal and written communication skills -- engineers at Kong write the documentation for their products
Familiarity with AI LLM concepts and applications development
Hands on experience with Rust
Bonus Points:
Hands on experience with NGINX/OpenResty/Kong/LuaJIT.
Hands on experience with Envoy or Istio.
#LI-BR2
About Kong:
Kong Inc., a leading developer of API and AI connectivity technologies, is building the infrastructure that powers the agentic era. Trusted by the Fortune 500 and startups alike, Kong's unified API and AI platform, Kong Konnect, enables organizations to secure, manage, accelerate, govern, and monetize the flow of intelligence across APIs and AI models. For more information, visit www.konghq.com.
Skills Required
- 5+ years of programming in server-side applications and components.
- Experience designing, prototyping, building and debugging scalable distributed applications.
- Solid hands-on low-level technical expertise in Linux systems troubleshooting and profiling.
- Experience in distributed systems and Linux networking stack.
- Familiarity with AI LLM concepts and applications development.
- Hands on experience with Rust.
Kong Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Kong and has not been reviewed or approved by Kong.
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Fair & Transparent Compensation — Pay is considered competitive for many roles, particularly in senior and technical positions, with bonuses and overtime enhancing earnings for some. Compensation is generally described as strong across a range of functions.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Policies such as flexible time off, company Unplug Days, U‑First Fridays, and a paid sabbatical create multiple avenues for rest and personal development. These offerings support work‑life balance for a distributed workforce.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Stock options and an employee stock purchase plan enable broad participation in company equity. Equity is positioned as a meaningful component of total rewards alongside cash compensation.
Kong Insights
What We Do
Kong Inc., a leading developer of cloud API technologies, is on a mission to enable companies around the world to become “API-first” and securely accelerate AI adoption. Kong helps organizations globally — from startups to Fortune 500 enterprises — unleash developer productivity, build securely and accelerate time to market.
Why Work With Us
It starts with how we show up for each other. We’ve created a workplace that’s intentionally flexible, deeply inclusive, and built for meaningful collaboration — whether virtual or in person. We trust our teams to own their work, and we give them the support, tools, and freedom to grow.
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