Senior Software Engineer

Speedrun Talent Network; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 1,800,000 - 2,600,000; Full time

Job summary

Kong Inc. in Bengaluru seeks a Senior Software Engineer to design and implement high-performance Go runtimes, CLI engines and declarative state management tools. You’ll influence the architecture used by thousands of engineers interfacing with Kong’s runtime, including deck, Kong Terraform Provider, and official Go SDKs.

The role emphasizes backend systems, API design, IaC tooling, and leadership across global teams, with a focus on scalability, reliability and developer experience.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of software engineering experience designing and delivering production-grade backend systems using Go.
• Proven API design mastery across REST, gRPC, OpenAPI with a focus on backward compatibility and DX.
• Hands-on IaC / Platform understanding including Terraform provider development and Kubernetes operators.
• Engineering rigor with clean code, automated testing (unit, integration, end-to-end) and robust architecture.
• Strong communication and leadership to mentor engineers and collaborate across global teams.

Responsibilities

• Develop high-performance Go runtime, CLI engines and declarative state managers.
• Architect enterprise-grade Go SDKs and core libraries interfacing with Kong's Konnect SaaS platform.
• Define REST/ gRPC/ OpenAPI contracts ensuring backwards compatibility and DX.
• Build spec-driven tooling for OpenAPI/ AsyncAPI to generate SDKs and IaC definitions.
• Develop and extend Terraform Providers and CLI tooling for SI/CICD workflows.

Skills

Go (Golang)

API design

IaC / Platform

Testing & QA

Leadership

Tools

Terraform

Kubernetes

CI/CD pipelines

Job description

Are you ready to unlock intelligence?

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.

Kong’s API Management suite includes the Kong Enterprise Gateway, the Konnect SaaS platform and a variety of Managed Gateways in public clouds like AWS, Azure and GCP. This suite of products helps customers in different industries (like finance, banking, eCommerce, airlines, etc.) manage their API platforms and operations at scale. Our customers expect secure, reliable, high scale, low latency offerings from Kong whether running on-premise or in the public cloud.

About the Role:

As a Senior Software Engineer, you will develop high-performance Go runtime, CLI engines and declarative state managers. You will architect the software that thousands of engineering teams use every day to interact with Kong's runtime — including deck (Kong’s state management & drift detection engine), the Kong Terraform Provider, official Go SDKs and automated spec-driven API tooling.

What You Will Build & Own:

You will balance Software Development with APIOps Architecture:

1. Declarative Engine

• State & Drift Management Engines: Design and optimize algorithms in Go for state diffing, validation, and real-time drift detection across large-scale multi-tenant API topologies.

• Go SDK & Core Libraries: Architect and maintain enterprise-grade, high-performance Go SDKs used by Kong’s internal microservices and external clients to interface with the Konnect SaaS platform.

• API Design & Standardization: Define clean, extensible REST API contracts across Kong’s platform runtimes.

• Code Generation & Tooling Pipelines: Architect spec-driven tooling (OpenAPI/AsyncAPI) to dynamically generate SDKs, client libraries, and IaC definitions without manual developer toil.

2. APIOps & IaC Ecosystem

• Core CLI Engineering: Build modern, fast, and intuitive CLI-first developer experiences designed for both human developer workflows and high-concurrency CI/CD automation pipelines (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins).

• Terraform & Provider Ecosystem: Build and extend high-reliability Terraform Providers to enable seamless IaC operations.

• Support for Next-Gen Runtimes: Bring new runtime capabilities into the declarative management ecosystem as native API primitives.

What You’ll Bring:

• 5+ years of software engineering experience designing and delivering production-grade backend systems and developer tools using Golang.

• API Design Mastery: Proven experience crafting intuitive, developer-friendly API schemas (REST, gRPC, OpenAPI), with a strong focus on backwards compatibility, versioning and developer experience (DX).

• Hands-on IaC / Platform Understanding: Production exposure to Terraform provider development, Kubernetes operators or stateful CI/CD automation pipelines.

• Engineering Rigor: Strong commitment to clean code, comprehensive automated testing (unit, integration, end-to-end), benchmarking and robust software architecture.

• Communication & Technical Leadership: Ability to articulate complex technical decisions, mentor junior engineers and collaborate across global backend and platform teams.

Why Join Kong?

• Build for Engineers: Your work is open-source adjacent and directly impacts millions of developers and Fortune 500 enterprises around the globe.

• Solving Deep Technical Problems: Move beyond standard CRUD services to solve high-impact problems in declarative state sync, API governance and distributed connectivity.

• High-Growth Pre-IPO Startup: Scale your career alongside a market-leading company driving the future of API management and AI connectivity.

#LI-PC1

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.