{"id":3273245,"url":"https://alion.io/job/kong-senior-software-engineer-ai-gateway-2","title":"Senior Software Engineer, AI Gateway","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":86,"open_postings":14,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.5,"repost_share":0.071,"time_to_fill_p50_days":49,"computed_at":"2026-10-30T05:48:23Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"senior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Milan, Italy"],"countries":["IT"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":77180,"max":95340,"currency":"EUR","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":106820},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Docker","optional":false},{"name":"Go","optional":false},{"name":"gRPC","optional":false},{"name":"Kong","optional":false},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"TCP/IP","optional":false},{"name":"LangChain","optional":true},{"name":"Lua","optional":true},{"name":"Nginx","optional":true},{"name":"PyTorch","optional":true},{"name":"Service Mesh","optional":true},{"name":"TensorFlow","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-26T11:30:31Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-26","last_verified_at":"2026-10-30T16:34:03Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":4,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":4},"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.\nThe Mission\nThe 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.\nWhat You’ll Do\nDesign, own, and lead the development of critical, high-performance components for Kong’s AI Gateway using Golang.\n\nInfluence the technical roadmap and architecture, ensuring our systems are scalable, resilient, and prepared for future challenges.\n\nArchitect solutions that prevent technical debt and maintain our commitment to 99.99% uptime and reliability.\n\nMentor and guide other engineers on the team, fostering a culture of technical excellence and collaborative problem-solving.\n\nDrive best practices in testing, observability, and continuous integration/delivery within a complex, distributed environment.\n\nCollaborate cross-functionally with product management, SRE, and other engineering teams to deliver a world-class developer experience.\n\nResolve complex technical issues and conduct deep-dives into system performance, identifying and addressing bottlenecks.\n\nWhat You’ll Bring\nThe Toolkit\nExtensive professional experience building software in a systems language like Golang or Python.\n\nDeep understanding of distributed systems, microservice architectures, and API design principles.\n\nProven experience with cloud-native technologies, including Kubernetes and Docker.\n\nExperience with or a strong interest in AI/ML infrastructure, such as LLM orchestration, vector databases, or model serving.\n\nSolid knowledge of networking fundamentals (TCP/IP, HTTP/2, gRPC).\n\nThe Kong DNA\nOwnership: You are a proactive problem-solver with a bias for action, taking full ownership of your work from concept to production.\n\nUrgency: You thrive in a fast-paced, high-growth environment, and you are driven to deliver results quickly and efficiently.\n\nCollaboration: You are an excellent communicator who works effectively with a globally distributed team to achieve shared goals.\n\nBonus Points\nContributions to open-source software projects.\n\nExperience with Nginx, Lua, or service mesh technologies.\n\nFamiliarity with AI frameworks like LangChain, PyTorch, or TensorFlow.\n\nPrior experience building API gateways, developer platforms, or large-scale infrastructure-as-a-service products.\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":3236,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Integration & API Management","Developer Tools"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-26T12:50:02Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":63,"band":"ok","label":"Likely open","p_open":1,"p_active":0.632,"p_room":1,"age_days":3,"expected_fill_days":49,"reasons":["conf:2","stale_co","velocity","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-10-30T05:48:23Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":106820,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/kong-senior-software-engineer-ai-gateway-2","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/kong-senior-software-engineer-ai-gateway-2.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-30T18:19:19Z","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":7194,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-31T00:00:00Z"}},"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-senior-software-engineer-ai-gateway-2"},{"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-senior-software-engineer-ai-gateway-2"},{"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-senior-software-engineer-ai-gateway-2"},{"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-senior-software-engineer-ai-gateway-2\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fkong-senior-software-engineer-ai-gateway-2"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3273245}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"konghq.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3273245},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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