About the role
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.
Location:Washington
The Mission
As a Senior Software Engineering Manager for Managed Gateways SREs, you will lead the charge in defining the reliability, scalability, and operational excellence of Kong's critical managed services. Your team's unwavering commitment to 99.99%+ uptime and seamless performance directly empowers developers globally, fueling the Agentic Era by providing the robust infrastructure that underpins modern API-driven applications. You'll build this team in Toronto from the ground up, and in the early stages, you'll stay hands-on - directly in the work, not just directing it from a distance.
What You'll Do
- Build Kong's Managed Gateways SRE team in Seattle, Washington from the ground up - hiring, setting the bar, and staying hands-on in enterprise implementations as the team ramps.
- Act as a direct contributor to critical implementations and reliability work in the early stages, with outcomes that materially move the needle on Managed Gateways' growth and business performance.
- Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing team of Site Reliability Engineers dedicated to Kong's Managed Gateway offerings, in direct support of our critical enterprise customer base across the Americas and Europe.
- Architect and implement robust, scalable, and fault-tolerant cloud-native systems using technologies like Kubernetes, Golang, and major cloud providers.
- Own the end-to-end operational lifecycle, from proactive monitoring and alerting to incident response and blameless post-mortems, ensuring continuous service improvement.
- Drive developer delight and operational efficiency through automation, self-service tooling, and streamlined workflows for deploying and managing API gateways, while proactively preventing technical debt and reducing operational toil.
- Define, track, and report on key SLOs and SLIs, and advocate for architectural best practices that keep Managed Gateways performant and resilient as it scales.
- Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, engineering, and support teams to influence roadmap decisions and ensure operational readiness for new features.
What You'll Bring
The Toolkit
- Proven experience leading and managing Site Reliability Engineering or DevOps teams in a fast-paced, high-growth environment.
- Deep expertise in designing, deploying, and operating highly available distributed systems on cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
- Extensive hands-on experience with Kubernetes (k8s) and container orchestration in production environments.
- Proficiency in Golang or similar modern programming languages for infrastructure automation and service development.
- Strong understanding of observability principles and experience with tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, or similar.
- Demonstrated ability to manage critical incidents, perform root cause analysis, and implement effective preventative measures.
- Familiarity with API gateway technologies, service mesh, or network proxies is a significant plus.
The Kong DNA
- Ownership: You take full responsibility for the reliability and performance of systems, driving initiatives from conception to completion.
- Urgency: You thrive in dynamic environments, prioritizing critical issues and delivering impactful solutions with speed and precision.
- Collaboration: You build strong relationships, foster open communication, and work effectively across global teams to achieve shared goals.
Bonus Points
- Experience with open-source contributions or active participation in SRE/cloud-native communities.
- Certifications in cloud platforms (e.g., AWS Certified DevOps Engineer) or Kubernetes (e.g., CKA, CKAD).
- Background in companies focused on developer tools, infrastructure software, or API management.
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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.