{"id":61702,"url":"https://alion.io/job/kong-inc-staff-software-engineer-konnect-core-platform","title":"Staff Software Engineer, Konnect Core Platform","company":{"id":4941,"name":"Kong","domain":"konghq.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/kong","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":89,"open_postings":11,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.455,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":50,"computed_at":"2026-10-17T05:46:00Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"staff","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"board_field","remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"inferred","locations":["San Francisco, United States","Washington, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":["US"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":{"min":150000,"max":275000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":275000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":7,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Anomaly Detection","optional":false},{"name":"FedRAMP","optional":false},{"name":"GDPR","optional":false},{"name":"Insomnia","optional":false},{"name":"Kong","optional":false},{"name":"LDAP","optional":false},{"name":"SOC 2","optional":false},{"name":"Threat Modeling","optional":false},{"name":"Zero Trust","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-08-17T20:35:31Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-08-17","last_verified_at":"2026-10-17T15:49:13Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":60,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":60},"description":"Are you ready to unlock intelligence?\nIf 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.\nAbout the Role:\nKong is building the future of API management for developers. We’re a fast-growing, well-funded company with happy customers and motivated employees. Insomnia, acquired in 2019, is a full-lifecycle API development platform that has quickly become an integral part of Kong’s product portfolio.\nAs a Staff Software Engineer on the Konnect team at Kong, you’ll architect Kong Identity's multi-tenant identity platform supporting complex organizational hierarchies, cross-tenant isolation, and enterprise-grade security controls.\nWhat You'll Do:\nDesign and implement advanced token management systems, including refresh token rotation, proof-of-possession tokens, and custom token introspection with real-time revocation capabilities.\n\nLead development of Kong Identity's extensible claims engine supporting dynamic attribute resolution, contextual claim injection, and complex business logic evaluation at token issuance.\n\nArchitect global identity infrastructure with edge optimization, intelligent token caching, and cross-region replication strategies for sub-millisecond authentication latency worldwide.\n\nDesign sophisticated rate limiting, anomaly detection, and fraud prevention systems to protect against credential stuffing, token abuse, and distributed attacks.\n\nBuild enterprise identity federation capabilities, including SAML bridge patterns, external IdP chaining, and custom protocol adapters for legacy system integration.\n\nLead technical strategy for Kong Identity's developer experience, including SDKs, webhooks, audit logging, and real-time analytics dashboards for token lifecycle visibility.\n\nArchitect advanced client management systems supporting dynamic client registration, automated credential rotation, and programmatic policy enforcement.\n\nDesign Kong Identity's plugin architecture enables custom grant flows, protocol extensions, and third-party integrations while maintaining security boundaries.\n\nDrive implementation of compliance frameworks (SOC 2, FedRAMP, GDPR), including comprehensive audit trails, data residency controls, and privacy-preserving token designs.\n\nLead technical initiatives for Kong Identity's integration with observability platforms, supporting distributed tracing, metrics collection, and security event correlation.\n\nMentor engineering teams on advanced identity concepts including zero-trust architectures, workload identity, and service mesh integration patterns.\n\nWhat You'll Bring:\n7+ years of experience building production identity platforms at leading identity providers or enterprise software companies, with proven track record of handling millions of authentication requests daily.\n\nDeep expertise in advanced OAuth 2.0 extensions (PKCE, mTLS, JWT bearer assertions, token exchange), OpenID Connect profiles, and emerging standards like OAuth 2.1 and GNAP.\n\nProven experience architecting multi-tenant identity platforms with complex isolation requirements, tenant-specific configurations, and enterprise feature sets.\n\nStrong background in cryptographic protocols including advanced JWT patterns, key rotation strategies, Hardware Security Module (HSM) integration, and post-quantum cryptography considerations.\n\nExperience building identity platforms with sophisticated analytics, real-time monitoring, and security event detection capabilities at enterprise scale.\n\nExpertise in global identity infrastructure including edge deployment strategies, geo-distributed token validation, and cross-region data consistency patterns.\n\nDeep understanding of enterprise identity integration patterns including SAML federation, LDAP/AD bridges, SCIM provisioning, and custom protocol adapters.\n\nProven track record building developer-first identity platforms including comprehensive SDKs, webhook systems, and extensible API designs.\n\nExperience with identity platform security including threat modeling, penetration testing coordination, and implementation of advanced attack prevention mechanisms.\n\nStrong background in compliance and regulatory requirements for identity systems including audit trail design, data residency controls, and privacy engineering.\n\nExperience building identity platforms supporting complex organizational structures, delegated administration, and fine-grained permission models.\n\nExpertise in high-performance system design including horizontal scaling strategies, caching architectures, and latency optimization for identity operations.\n\nKnowledge of service mesh identity patterns, workload identity bootstrapping, and integration with container orchestration platforms.\n\nExperience with identity protocol extensions, custom grant flows, and building extensible identity platforms that support diverse use cases.\n\nProven ability to lead technical initiatives in complex, regulated environments while balancing innovation with security and compliance requirements.\n\nAbout Kong:\nKong 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.","description_format":"text","description_chars":5549,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":7,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"},{"name":"San Francisco","iso":null,"kind":"city"},{"name":"Washington","iso":null,"kind":"city"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Integration & API Management","Developer Tools"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-08-17T20:35:31Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":29,"band":"fade","label":"Fading","p_open":1,"p_active":0.667,"p_room":0.44,"age_days":60,"expected_fill_days":50,"reasons":["conf:3","velocity","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-10-17T05:46:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":275000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/kong-inc-staff-software-engineer-konnect-core-platform","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/kong-inc-staff-software-engineer-konnect-core-platform.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-17T18:21:42Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":1054,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-18T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":4941},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=4941"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fkong-inc-staff-software-engineer-konnect-core-platform"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fkong-inc-staff-software-engineer-konnect-core-platform"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fkong-inc-staff-software-engineer-konnect-core-platform"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/kong-inc-staff-software-engineer-konnect-core-platform\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fkong-inc-staff-software-engineer-konnect-core-platform"}]}