Lead the global Quality Engineering team at Kong, driving AI-driven testing strategies across flagship runtime platforms.
Skills & Technologies
Role intensity
10% coding — mostly leadership/strategy
AI in the day-to-day
You will spearhead the transformation of our quality engineering function using LLMs and automated prompt/agent loops.
Requirements
- Experience
- 10+ years
Joblaze summary
In the role of Senior Engineering Manager for Test Function at Kong, the individual will lead a global team of Software Development Engineers in Test (SDETs) while architecting an innovative AI-driven testing strategy. Key skills include extensive experience in software engineering, engineering management, and hands-on integration of AI technologies into testing workflows. This position is ideal for seasoned professionals with a strong background in quality engineering and a vision for transforming traditional testing methods. Kong's focus on cutting-edge API and AI technologies adds a dynamic element to the team's mission.
Joblaze insights
- Listed 16 days ago on Joblaze — tracked directly from Kong's career page.
- Kong has 88 other open roles including Account Development Representative (Australia), Senior Software Engineer - Golang, Director, Incentive Compensation.
- 1815 active AI/ML roles on Joblaze right now.
- 1155 active Kubernetes roles on Joblaze right now.
- 722 active C++ roles on Joblaze right now.
- Typical AI/ML salary we track runs $148,809–$260,000 (median $190,000, across 1078 roles). See AI/ML salary trends
Quick facts
- Is the Senior Engineering Manager - Test Function role remote?
- It's hybrid — Kong expects some on-site time in Milan, Italy.
- How much experience is required?
- At least 10 years of relevant experience for this Senior Engineering Manager - Test Function role.
- Where is the role based?
- Kong is hiring for this position in Milan, Italy.
- What's the tech stack?
- Joblaze extracted these technologies from the posting: AI/ML, C++, Docker, GitHub Actions, Kubernetes, Lua.
- What seniority level is this role?
- Kong targets senior candidates for this position.
- Is this full-time or contract?
- Full-time for this Senior Engineering Manager - Test Function role at Kong.
From the original posting
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:
As the Senior Engineering Manager, you will serve as the global leader for Quality Engineering across Kong’s flagship runtime platforms (AI Gateway, API Gateway, Event Gateway and Mesh).
This is a high-visibility, transformative leadership role. Beyond overseeing our distributed global SDET organization, you will be the primary architect of Kong’s next-generation AI-driven testing strategy. You will spearhead the transformation of our quality engineering function from traditional automation to an intelligent, agentic, self-healing test substrate, using LLMs and automated prompt/agent loops to test the very infrastructure powering the AI era.
What You’ll Do:
Global Team Leadership & Operations: Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing, geographically distributed team of Software Development Engineers in Test (SDETs) across North America, Europe, and Asia.
Architect the AI Testing Strategy: Define and execute the roadmap for integrating AI, LLMs, and autonomous test agents directly into our testing lifecycle. Implement generative AI capabilities for automated test case generation, smart failure triage, self-healing test scripts, and dynamic edge-case synthesis.
Own Runtimes Quality Strategy: Establish testing strategies for low-latency, high-throughput C/Lua/Rust data planes.
Modernize Frameworks & CI/CD Pipelines: Oversee the architectural evolution of our end-to-end, performance, regression, and chaos-testing automation harnesses embedded within modern CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, Docker, K8s).
Shift-Left Quality & Governance: Drive quality ownership upstream. Partner closely with Software Engineering and Product Management to embed rigorous testability standards into initial architectural designs.
Define Enterprise-Grade Metrics: Establish and monitor clear QE health indicators (e.g., CI signal reliability, automation coverage, defect density, time-to-triage, and release stability).
What You’ll Bring:
10+ Years in Software Engineering / SDET: Proven track record building and scaling enterprise software test automation systems.
4+ Years in Engineering Management: Direct experience leading distributed or global software engineering/SDET teams.
Hands-on AI Integration Vision: Proven experience applying LLMs, Generative AI, or autonomous agent frameworks (e.g., Model Context Protocol, agentic tool-calling, synthetic data generation) to software quality or developer workflows.
Operational Excellence: Demonstrated ability to manage follow-the-sun operational cadence, vendor partnerships, and cross-timezone execution seamlessly.
Bonus Points:
Direct experience testing high-performance networking data planes, proxies, or API Gateways (e.g., Kong, NGINX, Envoy).
Background in performance, chaos engineering (e.g., Gremlin, Litmus), and load testing high-availability SaaS platforms.
Active involvement or contributions to open-source quality frameworks or AI development tooling.
#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.