Senior Software Engineer - Office of the CTO

Kong is building the future of API and AI infrastructure. Our platform powers connectivity for thousands of organizations globally across APIs, microservices, Kubernetes and now AI agents and LLM-driven applications.

The Role

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.

What You’ll Do:

• 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

What you'll bring:

• 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

Bonus points:

• 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