Software Engineer 2, Managed Gateways
Role Overview
As a Senior Software Engineer, you’ll not only build critical components of the Managed Gateways platform, but also take ownership of major features end-to-end, lead technical execution within the team, and mentor peers. You’ll collaborate with product managers, architects, and other engineers to shape the technical direction and ensure the platform delivers 99.99% uptime, performance, and developer delight.
What You'll Do:
Design, develop, and operate highly available distributed systems for Managed Gateways, ensuring resilience to regional and zonal outages.
Own and lead delivery of key features/modules, driving them from design through implementation and production rollout.
Build microservices and control-plane components that power Kong’s Dedicated Cloud Gateways and Serverless Gateways.
Partner with Product and Engineering teams to deliver new features at scale that directly impact customers’ ability to build, secure, and manage APIs.
Participate in on-call rotations, owning services in production and driving reliability improvements.
Write automated tests, observability hooks, and tooling to ensure reliability and reduce toil.
Assist in the hiring process and help grow and mentor engineers on the team.
Contribute to shaping the technical roadmap for Managed Gateways, bringing in ideas from infrastructure, networking, and platform engineering.
Work in a high-velocity, pre-IPO environment, balancing innovation with reliability and customer impact.
What You'll Bring:
Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science or related field.
5+ years of experience building high-performance software, ideally in infrastructure or platform engineering.
Strong experience with Golang
Deep understanding of distributed systems, networking (L4/L7, DNS, TLS/SSL, HTTP), and cloud-native architectures.
Hands-on experience with at least one major cloud (AWS, GCP, Azure) and container orchestration (Kubernetes).
Experience building APIs, standardizing APIs in large organizations, and creating API workflows.
Experience designing and operating systems to deliver 99.99%+ uptime SLAs.
Proven ability to debug complex systems from bit-and-bytes level (packets, protocols) to high-level design.
Knowledge of observability and monitoring practices to ensure high availability and performance.
Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work across teams and geographies.
Strong sense of ownership, with experience driving features end-to-end and influencing technical direction.
Bonus Points:
Experience working with or contributing to L4/L7 proxies such as Nginx, Envoy, or HAProxy.
Background in API management, API workflows, or developer platforms.
Experience with multi-cloud networking.
Contributions to open-source infrastructure or networking projects.
#LI-AP1
About Kong:
Kong Inc., the AI Connectivity Company, is building the connectivity layer of AI. Trusted by the Fortune 500® and AI-native startups alike, Kong’s unified API and AI platform enables organizations to secure, manage, accelerate, govern, and monetize the flow of intelligence across APIs and AI traffic — on any model, any cloud. For more information, visit www.konghq.com.
Key Skills for This Role
Full Job Posting
About the Role:
As a Senior Software Engineer, you’ll not only build critical components of the Managed Gateways platform, but also take ownership of major features end-to-end, lead technical execution within the team, and mentor peers. You’ll collaborate with product managers, architects, and other engineers to shape the technical direction and ensure the platform delivers 99.99% uptime, performance, and developer delight.
What You'll Do:
Design, develop, and operate highly available distributed systems for Managed Gateways, ensuring resilience to regional and zonal outages.
Own and lead delivery of key features/modules, driving them from design through implementation and production rollout.
Build microservices and control-plane components that power Kong’s Dedicated Cloud Gateways and Serverless Gateways.
Partner with Product and Engineering teams to deliver new features at scale that directly impact customers’ ability to build, secure, and manage APIs.
Participate in on-call rotations, owning services in production and driving reliability improvements.
Write automated tests, observability hooks, and tooling to ensure reliability and reduce toil.
Assist in the hiring process and help grow and mentor engineers on the team.
Contribute to shaping the technical roadmap for Managed Gateways, bringing in ideas from infrastructure, networking, and platform engineering.
Work in a high-velocity, pre-IPO environment, balancing innovation with reliability and customer impact.
What You'll Bring:
Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science or related field.
5+ years of experience building high-performance software, ideally in infrastructure or platform engineering.
Strong experience with Golang
Deep understanding of distributed systems, networking (L4/L7, DNS, TLS/SSL, HTTP), and cloud-native architectures.
Hands-on experience with at least one major cloud (AWS, GCP, Azure) and container orchestration (Kubernetes).
Experience building APIs, standardizing APIs in large organizations, and creating API workflows.
Experience designing and operating systems to deliver 99.99%+ uptime SLAs.
Proven ability to debug complex systems from bit-and-bytes level (packets, protocols) to high-level design.
Knowledge of observability and monitoring practices to ensure high availability and performance.
Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work across teams and geographies.
Strong sense of ownership, with experience driving features end-to-end and influencing technical direction.
Bonus Points:
Experience working with or contributing to L4/L7 proxies such as Nginx, Envoy, or HAProxy.
Background in API management, API workflows, or developer platforms.
Experience with multi-cloud networking.
Contributions to open-source infrastructure or networking projects.
#LI-AP1
About Kong:
Kong Inc., the AI Connectivity Company, is building the connectivity layer of AI. Trusted by the Fortune 500® and AI-native startups alike, Kong’s unified API and AI platform enables organizations to secure, manage, accelerate, govern, and monetize the flow of intelligence across APIs and AI traffic — on any model, any cloud. For more information, visit www.konghq.com.
About Kong
Kong provides an API platform built on open-source technology, offering gateway, service mesh, and connectivity solutions that help enterprises manage APIs and microservices at scale.
Visit company websiteJobs and hiring trendsApply for this job in 1 click
Skip the repetitive application forms
Install the Base Career Chrome Extension and autofill job applications across major job boards with your profile.
Trusted by over 500,000 job seekers on Base Career
More from this employer
More jobs at Kong
Deal Desk Director - International
Dubai, UAE
Kong is seeking an experienced International Deal Desk Director to build and lead deal desk operations across international markets. The role owns pricing strategy, complex deal support, operational governance, analytics
Deal Desk Director - International
Dubai, UAE
Kong is seeking an experienced International Deal Desk Director to build and lead deal operations across EMEA and APJ. The role owns pricing strategy, complex deal structuring, governance, analytics, and cross-functional
Account Development Representative
, GBR
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
Staff Solutions Engineer - AI Specialist
, USA
Enterprise Account Executive - San Francisco
, USA
Deal Desk Director - International
Dubai, UAE
Deal Desk Director - International
Dubai, UAE
Deal Desk Director - International
Dubai, UAE
Staff Solutions Engineer - Central
, USA
Staff Solutions Engineer - West
, USA
Account Development Representative
, GBR
