Requirements
- Experience
- 5+ years
Joblaze summary
In this role, the Senior Software Engineer will focus on developing and maintaining the Kong AI Gateway, specifically working on features like multi-LLM routing and performance optimization. Key skills include extensive experience in server-side programming, distributed systems, and proficiency in Linux, with a strong emphasis on API management. This position is ideal for seasoned engineers with a background in scalable application development and a familiarity with AI concepts. The team operates in a collaborative environment, emphasizing mentorship and ownership.
Joblaze insights
- Listed about a month ago on Joblaze — tracked directly from Kong's career page.
- Kong has 89 other open roles including Account Development Representative (Swedish Speaking), SRE 2, Managed Gateways, SRE , Managed Gateways.
- 1586 active AI/ML roles on Joblaze right now.
- 381 active Linux roles on Joblaze right now.
- 244 active Rust roles on Joblaze right now.
Quick facts
- Is the Senior Software Engineer role remote?
- It's hybrid — Kong expects some on-site time in Milan.
- How much experience is required?
- At least 5 years of relevant experience for this Senior Software Engineer role.
- Where is the role based?
- Kong is hiring for this position in Milan.
- What's the tech stack?
- Joblaze extracted these technologies from the posting: Istio, AI/ML, Envoy, Nginx, Rust, Kong.
- What seniority level is this role?
- Kong targets senior candidates for this position.
- Is this full-time or contract?
- Full-time for this Senior Software Engineer 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:
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.