Typical software engineer pay at startups: $221K median, middle half $188K–$256K (2,406 posted ranges).
Typical engineering pay at Kong: $190K–$245K — median of 11 listed ranges.
Across all startups we track: $170K–$242K for engineering roles (8,046 listed ranges).
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.
The AI Gateway team is on a mission to build the central nervous system for the agentic era, enabling developers to securely and reliably connect, observe, and manage their AI and ML services at scale. We are architecting the foundational layer that will power the next generation of intelligent applications. Your work will directly impact developer delight and ensure our infrastructure is the most trusted path for AI traffic in the world.
Design, own, and lead the development of critical, high-performance components for Kong’s AI Gateway using Golang.
Influence the technical roadmap and architecture, ensuring our systems are scalable, resilient, and prepared for future challenges.
Architect solutions that prevent technical debt and maintain our commitment to 99.99% uptime and reliability.
Mentor and guide other engineers on the team, fostering a culture of technical excellence and collaborative problem-solving.
Drive best practices in testing, observability, and continuous integration/delivery within a complex, distributed environment.
Collaborate cross-functionally with product management, SRE, and other engineering teams to deliver a world-class developer experience.
Resolve complex technical issues and conduct deep-dives into system performance, identifying and addressing bottlenecks.
Extensive professional experience building software in a systems language like Golang or Python.
Deep understanding of distributed systems, microservice architectures, and API design principles.
Proven experience with cloud-native technologies, including Kubernetes and Docker.
Experience with or a strong interest in AI/ML infrastructure, such as LLM orchestration, vector databases, or model serving.
Solid knowledge of networking fundamentals (TCP/IP, HTTP/2, gRPC).
Ownership: You are a proactive problem-solver with a bias for action, taking full ownership of your work from concept to production.
Urgency: You thrive in a fast-paced, high-growth environment, and you are driven to deliver results quickly and efficiently.
Collaboration: You are an excellent communicator who works effectively with a globally distributed team to achieve shared goals.
Contributions to open-source software projects.
Experience with Nginx, Lua, or service mesh technologies.
Familiarity with AI frameworks like LangChain, PyTorch, or TensorFlow.
Prior experience building API gateways, developer platforms, or large-scale infrastructure-as-a-service products.
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About Kong:
Kong Inc., the AI Connectivity Company, is building the connectivity layer of AI. Trusted by the Fortune 500® and AI-native startups alike, Kong’s unified API and AI platform enables organizations to secure, manage, accelerate, govern, and monetize the flow of intelligence across APIs and AI traffic — on any model, any cloud. For more information, visit www.konghq.com.
From Kong's careers page. First seen Oct 26, 2026, last verified Oct 26, 2026.
Open roles: 93, up 4 (+4%) over the last 8 days.