{"id":3273246,"url":"https://alion.io/job/kong-senior-software-engineer-ai-gateway-3","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":"B","score":84,"open_postings":18,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.611,"repost_share":0.056,"time_to_fill_p50_days":45,"computed_at":"2026-11-04T06:34:25Z"}},"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":5,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"Docker","optional":false},{"name":"GCP","optional":false},{"name":"Go","optional":false},{"name":"Kong","optional":false},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":false},{"name":"Prompt Engineering","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Service Mesh","optional":false},{"name":"LangChain","optional":true},{"name":"LlamaIndex","optional":true},{"name":"Lua","optional":true},{"name":"OpenResty","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-26T11:30:00Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-26","last_verified_at":"2026-11-04T14:32:53Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":9,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":9},"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 at the forefront of Kong's evolution into the Agentic Era, building the critical infrastructure that connects enterprises to the world of generative AI. We are architecting a highly performant, secure, and observable gateway that provides developers with an unparalleled 'Developer Delight' experience for AI workloads. Your work will directly empower our customers to innovate faster by securely integrating LLMs and AI services into their applications at massive scale.\nWhat You’ll Do\nDesign and own core components of our AI Gateway, ensuring 99.99% uptime and low-latency performance for critical AI traffic.\n\nLead the implementation of features like prompt engineering, caching, and observability for AI services, writing clean, maintainable Golang and/or Python code.\n\nInfluence the technical roadmap and architecture, proactively identifying and mitigating technical debt to ensure long-term scalability.\n\nArchitect robust solutions for integrating with various Large Language Models (LLMs) and AI platforms, shaping the future of API management for AI.\n\nMentor junior engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence, high-ownership, and rapid iteration through code reviews and design discussions.\n\nDrive the full development lifecycle, from ideation and design to deployment and operation within a modern Kubernetes environment.\n\nCollaborate with product managers and cross-functional teams to translate complex customer requirements into elegant and powerful technical solutions.\n\nWhat You’ll Bring\nThe Toolkit\nExtensive experience in backend development, preferably with Golang and/or Python.\n\nDeep understanding of distributed systems, microservices architecture, and API design principles.\n\nProven experience designing and operating services in a cloud-native environment (Kubernetes, Docker, AWS/GCP/Azure).\n\nFamiliarity with API gateways, service mesh, or related infrastructure technologies.\n\nStrong computer science fundamentals (data structures, algorithms, concurrency).\n\nThe Kong DNA\nOwnership: You are a self-starter who takes initiative and sees features through from conception to production.\n\nUrgency: You thrive in a fast-paced environment, balancing quality with the need to deliver value to customers quickly.\n\nCollaboration: You excel at working with a globally distributed team, communicating clearly and effectively to achieve shared goals.\n\nBonus Points\nExperience with AI/ML infrastructure, LLMs, or frameworks like LangChain or LlamaIndex.\n\nContributions to open-source projects.\n\nExperience with performance tuning and optimization of high-throughput systems.\n\nKnowledge of Lua/OpenResty.\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":3343,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":5,"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":8,"expected_fill_days":45,"reasons":["conf:1","stale_co","velocity","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-11-04T06:34:25Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":106820,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/kong-senior-software-engineer-ai-gateway-3","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/kong-senior-software-engineer-ai-gateway-3.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-04T16:20:41Z","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":24903,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-05T00:00:00Z"}},"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-3"},{"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-3"},{"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-3"},{"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-3\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fkong-senior-software-engineer-ai-gateway-3"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3273246}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"konghq.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3273246},"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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