Senior Software Engineer

Who you are

• 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
• Strong production experience with Golang
• Experience designing and operating distributed systems at scale
• Solid experience with PostgreSQL and Redis in production environments
• Experience building backend systems with high availability, scalability, and reliability
• Strong systems thinking, debugging, and performance optimization skills
• Experience with Kubernetes, networking, or API gateways
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure)
• Contributions to open source or internal platform tooling
• Experience working on platform, infra, or developer tooling products

What the job involves

• We’re looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join Kong’s Office of the CTO team and work on special, high-impact projects that influence the direction of our platform and engineering strategy
• The Office of the CTO (OCTO) is where Kong’s most ambitious and exploratory engineering work happens, new platforms, foundational systems and high-impact technical bets that shape the company’s future
• You’ll work on everything from distributed database provisioning and durable workflow orchestration to LLM fine-tuning and infrastructure for our AI Builder capabilities, helping define a new foundation for how developers build and run AI-driven systems at scale
• This is a rare opportunity to shape a greenfield AI platform from the ground up, with direct input into architecture, tooling, and developer experience
• This is a role for engineers who enjoy deep technical challenges, ambiguity, and building systems that matter
• Design and build highly scalable distributed backend systems
• Develop core services in Golang, with a focus on performance and reliability
• Work with PostgreSQL and Redis to build robust, data-intensive systems
• Architect systems that operate across microservices, networking layers, and cloud platforms
• Collaborate closely with the CTO and senior engineers on strategic technical initiatives
• Prototype and productionize new platform capabilities and internal tooling
• Influence engineering direction and technical standards across Kong

Benefits

• Flexible time off: Take time to take care of yourself and the things that matter most
• Stock options: We want you to share in our success. That's why stock options are offered to most Kongers
• U-First Fridays: Get 4 hours a month for continuous learning with a book, podcast, or course of your choice
• Virtual events: Stay connected with Donut chats, trivia, fitness challenges, guided meditations, and more
• Dedicated unplug days: Silence those notifications. Enjoy some well-deserved long weekend where the entire team unplugs
• Home office stipend: Build a home office environment tailored to support your productivity