Staff Software Engineer, Managed Gateways

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. About the Role Cloud Gateways is Kong's foundational cloud-native SaaS platform powering its managed API and AI Gateway offerings. It provides a multi-tenant control plane, automation and platform services that enable customers to securely deploy, operate and scale dedicated gateway infrastructure with the simplicity of a fully managed cloud service. Behind that experience is a distributed platform responsible for provisioning, fleet management, software lifecycle, zero-downtime upgrades, observability, security and multi-region operations across globally distributed cloud infrastructure. The platform powers mission-critical workloads with a target of 99.99% availability, balancing reliability, performance, operational excellence and infrastructure efficiency at global scale. As enterprises increasingly adopt AI alongside traditional APIs, Cloud Gateways becomes an increasingly important part of Kong's API and AI strategy. Every improvement in automation, scalability and operational excellence accelerates the delivery of new platform capabilities and enables product teams to innovate faster. As a Staff Software Engineer, you'll help define and build that platform. The problems you'll solve span software engineering, distributed systems, cloud infrastructure and site reliability engineering, requiring a systems mindset and a passion for building platforms that are reliable, scalable and simple to operate. This is a hands-on technical leadership role with end-to-end ownership of core platform capabilities. You'll shape technical strategy, influence platform architecture and solve complex engineering challenges while working across engineering organizations globally. We're looking for engineers who think beyond individual services, treat platforms as products and embrace a system ownership mindset. You'll be equally comfortable diving deep into production issues, designing resilient distributed systems and influencing long-term platform architecture and engineering strategy. Success in this role requires balancing software engineering, cloud infrastructure and operational excellence while always optimizing for the platform as a whole rather than individual services. Why Join Cloud Gateways? Cloud Gateways is more than a product. It's the foundational platform powering Kong's managed API and AI Gateway offerings, and the platform on which future managed connectivity services will be built. It provides the common platform for provisioning, fleet management, software lifecycle, upgrades, observability, reliability and operational excellence. Every investment in Cloud Gateways enables product teams to deliver new capabilities faster while giving customers a consistent, secure and fully managed experience. As a Staff Software Engineer, you'll help build the platform that sits at the center of Kong's API and AI strategy. Your work won't be confined to a single service or feature. You'll influence the underlying platform that multiple products depend on. You'll work on engineering problems such as: Building a distributed platform that powers Kong's managed API and AI Gateway offerings. Operating globally distributed control plane services at enterprise scale. Managing the lifecycle of thousands of dedicated gateway deployments across multiple cloud regions. Designing zero-downtime provisioning, upgrades and fleet-wide orchestration. Building self-healing systems through software, automation and intelligent operations. Improving reliability, observability and operational excellence at scale. Scaling the platform that enables the next generation of managed connectivity services. If you enjoy building foundational platforms,