Forward Deployed Engineer

Kong Inc.

Job Overview

Location

Remote - California

Job Type

Full-time

Full Job Description

📋 Description

• Partner directly with enterprise customers to design, build, and implement Kong-based solutions across cloud, hybrid, and on-premise environments.
• Lead hands-on implementation of API gateways, AI gateways, service mesh, developer portals, and related connectivity technologies in production environments.
• Build automation frameworks, migration tooling, custom integrations, and reusable accelerators to streamline customer adoption and modernization of API infrastructure.
• Drive migration initiatives from legacy API management platforms to Kong’s unified platform, ensuring minimal disruption and maximum reliability.
• Collaborate with customer engineering teams—including developers, platform engineers, architects, security teams, and executives—to resolve complex technical and operational challenges.
• Develop production-grade code, scripts, plugins, CI/CD integrations, Kubernetes automation, and infrastructure tooling as part of customer engagements.
• Work closely with Kong’s Product and Engineering teams to translate real-world customer feedback into product roadmap priorities and enhancements.
• Create and document reusable best practices, technical assets, reference architectures, and design patterns to scale delivery excellence across global customer deployments.
• Support strategic customer initiatives focused on AI connectivity, governance, cloud-native transformation, and modernization of mission-critical systems.
• Operate at the intersection of software engineering, platform engineering, and customer delivery to ensure successful deployment and adoption of Kong’s API and AI connectivity platform.
• Engage with Fortune 50/500 enterprises to accelerate their transition to AI-driven connectivity by leveraging Kong Konnect as the core infrastructure.
• Deliver measurable business outcomes through technical leadership, clear communication, and execution excellence in fast-moving, ambiguous enterprise environments.
• Contribute to the Professional Services organization by sharing field insights to improve product usability, documentation, and overall customer success.
• Maintain deep technical expertise in Linux, networking, cloud infrastructure, and DevOps practices to support diverse customer architectures.
• Utilize Infrastructure-as-Code tools such as Terraform, Helm, Ansible, or GitOps frameworks to automate deployment and configuration processes.
• Work remotely across California while collaborating with global teams in Professional Services, Product, Engineering, and Customer Success.

🎯 Requirements

• 8+ years in customer-facing engineering, professional services, site reliability engineering, or software engineering roles
• Strong hands-on experience with API gateways, API management, or distributed systems platforms
• Proven expertise in Kubernetes and cloud-native infrastructure
• Proficiency in at least one programming language such as Python, Go, Java, JavaScript, or Lua
• Experience building automation frameworks, CI/CD pipelines, or migration tooling
• Familiarity with Infrastructure-as-Code tools like Terraform, Helm, Ansible, or GitOps frameworks

🏖️ Benefits

• Opportunity to work directly with Fortune 50/500 enterprises on mission-critical AI and API modernization projects
• Accelerated technical and professional growth through exposure to cutting-edge cloud-native technologies and enterprise architectures
• Role in a rapidly growing Professional Services organization shaping global adoption of API and AI connectivity platforms
• Remote work flexibility with focus on California-based candidates

Skills & Technologies

Python

JavaScript

Java

AWS

Azure

Remote

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Kong Inc.

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About Kong Inc.

Kong Inc. is a San Francisco-based software company that develops an open-source API gateway and service connectivity platform. The company offers Kong Gateway, Kong Mesh, and Konnect cloud services to manage, secure, and observe microservices and APIs across clouds and data centers. Founded in 2007 as Mashape, it rebranded to Kong in 2017. Kong’s technology provides traffic control, authentication, rate limiting, and analytics for modern distributed architectures, supporting organizations in digital transformation and cloud-native adoption.

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