Sr Engineer - DataPower & Kong Administrator

LPL Financials; Hyderabad; On-site; INR 4,200,000 - 6,600,000; Full time

Job summary

LPL Financials appears to be seeking a Senior Middleware/API Infrastructure Engineer with deep expertise in IBM DataPower and Kong. The role involves operational and architectural support for API gateways, deployment automation, and governance across Dev, Test, and Production environments.

Main responsibilities include managing Kong entities via Admin API, decK, and Terraform, ensuring security with OAuth2/OIDC/JWT and mTLS, plus on-call incident response and RCA documentation.

Qualifications

• 8+ years middleware experience with DataPower and Kong.
• Advanced proficiency in DataPower policy development, GatewayScript, and XSLT.
• 5+ years in platform engineering, API gateway, or infrastructure SRE.
• 3+ years of Kong Gateway administration (Enterprise preferred; OSS acceptable).
• Strong understanding of HTTP/S, REST, gRPC, WebSocket, and TLS/mTLS.
• Experience with decK and Kong Admin API.
• Proficiency in Python, Bash, or PowerShell.

Responsibilities

• Install, configure, upgrade Kong Gateway across Dev, Test, and Prod.
• Manage Kong entities: services, routes, consumers, plugins, upstreams, certs, workspaces via Admin API, decK, Terraform.
• Design and enforce plugin policies: rate limiting, OAuth2/OIDC/JWT, mTLS, logging, correlation IDs.
• Maintain Kong Ingress Controller configurations on Kubernetes clusters.
• Oversee Kong Manager and Developer Portal access control and docs publishing.
• Provide Level 2/3 on-call support for Kong-related incidents (P1/P2).
• Research and resolve gateway issues: 4xx/5xx spikes, latency, TLS expiry.
• Produce RCA and post-incident reports with corrective actions.
• Triage tickets from internal API consumers and coordinate with owners.
• Maintain and test runbooks for failure scenarios.

Skills

IBM DataPower

Kong Gateway

Platform Engineering

Terraform

Kubernetes

Python / Bash

Tools

decK

Kong Admin API

Terraform

Helm

Grafana/Prometheus

Job description

Job Description

Job Overview:

The Senior Engineer, Middleware API Infrastructure Engineer with expertise in IBM DataPower and Kong provides senior-level operational and architectural support for API gateway and messaging infrastructure. This role drives continuous improvement, automation, and governance for DataPower and Kong platforms.

Responsibilities:

• Install, configure, upgrade, and patch Kong Gateway (Enterprise) across Dev, Test, and Production environments.
• Manage Kong entities services, routes, consumers, plugins, upstreams, certificates, and workspaces - via the Admin API, decK, and Terraform.
• Design and enforce plugin policies: rate limiting, OAuth 2.0/OIDC/JWT authentication, mTLS, request/response transformation, logging, and correlation-ID injection.
• Maintain and tune Kong Ingress Controller (KIC) configurations on Kubernetes clusters.
• Oversee Kong Manager (GUI) and Kong Developer Portal - access control, API documentation publishing, and developer onboarding.
• Act as Level 2/3 on-call support for Kong-related production incidents (P1/P2).
• Investigate and resolve gateway-layer issues: 4xx/5xx error spikes, latency outliers, plugin misconfigurations, upstream connectivity failures, and TLS certificate expiry.
• Perform root cause analysis (RCA) and author post-incident reports with corrective actions.
• Triage support tickets from internal API consumers and coordinate with upstream service owners.
• Maintain and test runbooks for common failure scenarios.

What are we looking for?

We’re looking for strong collaborators who deliver exceptional client experiences and thrive in fast-paced, team-oriented environments. Our ideal candidates pursue greatness, act with integrity, and are driven to help our clients succeed. We value those who embrace creativity, continuous improvement, and contribute to a culture where we win together and create and share joy in our work.

Requirements:

• 8+ years of middleware experience with deep expertise in IBM DataPower and Kong
• Advanced proficiency in DataPower policy development, GatewayScript, and XSLT
• 5+ years of experience in a platform engineering, API gateway, or infrastructure SRE role.
• 3+ years of hands-on Kong Gateway administration (Enterprise preferred; OSS acceptable).
• Strong understanding of HTTP/S, REST, gRPC, WebSocket, and TLS/mTLS.
• Experience with decK (declarative Kong config) and the Kong Admin API.
• Proficiency in at least one scripting language: Python, Bash, or PowerShell.
• Experience with Kubernetes (EKS, GKE, or AKS) and Kong Ingress Controller.
• Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code tools: Terraform and/or Helm.
• Practical experience with observability tooling (Grafana, Prometheus, Splunk, or Datadog).
• Comfortable working in an on-call rotation with defined SLA/SLO commitments.

Preference:

• Experience with containerized DataPower (DataPower on Kubernetes/OpenShift)
• Knowledge of event-driven integration patterns and Kafka/MQ bridging
• Kong Certified Professional or equivalent certification.
• Experience with service mesh technologies (Istio, Linkerd) alongside Kong.
• Familiarity with API security standards: OAuth 2.0, OIDC, SAML, API keys, JWT.