Kong AI Gateway Engineer

Senior Engineer – Middleware (Kong AI Gateway)

Join us in building the AI integration foundation for the enterprise. This role offers the opportunity to work at the intersection of software engineering, API gateways, and AI/LLM enablement—helping teams across the organization securely and reliably route AI and MCP traffic at scale.

The Middleware team is responsible for the operational reliability, extensibility, and evolution of the Kong AI Gateway platform. This Senior Engineer role is an individual contributor position focused on designing, building, and maintaining gateway capabilities that support AI/LLM integrations across the enterprise. You will collaborate closely with Product and Technology partners, contribute hands‑on engineering work, and help define reusable solutions that make AI integrations easier, safer, and more scalable for internal teams.

• Collaborate with Product and Technology teams to maximize the value delivered by the Kong AI Gateway platform.
• Build, enhance, and maintain Kong gateway capabilities supporting MCP and LLM traffic.
• Design and develop Kong plugins for authentication, rate limiting (including token‑based throttling), logging, and request/response transformation.
• Develop internal tools and solutions that improve how teams integrate AI capabilities across the organization.
• Maintain platform health through upgrades, configuration management, and operational best practices.
• Write and maintain technical documentation and knowledge base articles to support platform adoption and usage.
• Contribute to reusable patterns and reference implementations that enable consistent onboarding across teams.

We’re looking for a curious, detail‑oriented technologist who enjoys learning how complex systems work and collaborating across teams. You bring a strong analytical mindset, solid technical fundamentals, and a desire to grow your impact in platform and architecture‑focused work.

• 6+ years of relevant software development experience.
• 2+ years experience implementing Kong API Gateway and/or AI Gateway solutions in enterprise environments.
• 6+ years experience with APIs, containers, and microservices architectures.
• 6+ years experience with application development using multiple programming languages.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

• Experience with Google Apigee, IBM API Connect, or IBM Data Power.
• Experience supporting shared platforms used by multiple development teams.
• Familiarity with enterprise security, governance, and compliance considerations for API platforms.

• Systems thinking and platform‑oriented design.
• Clear technical communication across engineering and non‑engineering audiences.
• Problem‑solving mindset with a focus on scalable solutions.
• Continuous learning and adaptability in evolving AI and platform ecosystems.

$ - $

EOE.