Security Champion: AI Gateway & Threat Modeling Engineer

Kong; Lombardia; Hybrid; EUR 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus

Welfare system

Job summary

Kong Inc., the AI Connectivity Company, is seeking a Security Champion to join our Runtimes team in Milan on a permanent contract. You’ll write real code and bake security into every feature, focusing on securing AI traffic and threat modeling across the API Gateway and AI Gateway.

You’ll run security audits, manage vulnerabilities end-to-end, and coach engineers on secure coding practices, with a strong emphasis on practical defense in depth and collaboration with product teams.

Qualifications

• 3+ years building production software.
• 2+ years in a dedicated security role (AppSec, vulnerability research, or pentesting).
• Solid coding skills in an object oriented language (Rust, Java, Python, Go, or similar).
• Practical threat-modeling experience.
• Working knowledge of cybersecurity (especially L7 security and authentication).
• Basic knowledge of AI attack vectors.

Responsibilities

• Run security-focused code audits, threat modeling, and secure design reviews across our AI Gateway and API Gateway capabilities.
• Own vulnerability management end-to-end: triage, reproduction, remediation, verification.
• Partner with AI Gateway engineering on emerging AI/LLM threat patterns (eg: prompt injection, data leakage, model abuse).
• Coach engineers on secure coding practices, turning security findings into lasting team habits.
• Contribute hands-on to Gateway feature work, with security built-in from day one.

Skills

Rust

Java

Python

Go

Threat modeling

Secure coding practices

Vulnerability management

AppSec

Cybersecurity knowledge

L7 security

Tools

Nginx

OpenResty

Envoy

HAProxy

Kong

Lua

Job description

Kong Inc., the AI Connectivity Company, is seeking a Security Champion to join our Runtimes team in Milan on a permanent contract. You’ll write real code and bake security into every feature, focusing on securing AI traffic and threat modeling across the API Gateway and AI Gateway.

You’ll run security audits, manage vulnerabilities end-to-end, and coach engineers on secure coding practices, with a strong emphasis on practical defense in depth and collaboration with product teams.