Software Engineer 2, Ai Gateway

Kong; Lazio; Remote; EUR 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Kong is seeking a Software Engineer to join the AI Gateway Team to build and maintain API management software for AI and LLMs.

You will work on core features such as multi-LLM routing, semantic caching and routing, and MCP, while tackling performance tuning and low-level optimizations.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of programming in server-side applications and components.
• Hands on experience with either Golang or Rust.
• Experience building and debugging applications that are highly scalable, distributed, reliable and resilient.
• Solid hands-on low-level technical expertise in Linux systems troubleshooting, and profiling.
• Experience in distributed systems, Linux networking stack and computer systems programming, Kong works with APIs on both L7 and L4 transports and protocols, so this expertise and knowledge are required.
• Comfortable working with a remotely distributed team.
• Strong sense of ownership and excellent verbal and written communication skills – engineers at Kong write the documentation for their products.
• Familiarity with AI LLM concepts and applications development

Responsibilities

• Responsible for building and maintaining API management software for AI and LLMs and its underlying stack.
• Implement new innovative features including proxying capabilities, load balancing, databases support that extend Kong AI Gateway’s offering.
• Bugs troubleshooting, performance tuning and low-level optimizations.
• Fill the gaps between Kong and third-party deployment platforms and tooling.
• Any additional tasks required by manager.

Skills

Server-side programming

Golang or Rust

Distributed systems

Linux troubleshooting

APIs and networking

Documentation writing

Tools

NGINX/OpenResty

LuaJIT

Envoy/Istio

Job description

Are you ready to unlock intelligence?

È essenziale assicurarsi di soddisfare i requisiti per questo ruolo; la preghiamo di leggere attentamente quanto segue.

If you don’t think you meet all of the criteria below but are still interested in the job, 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:

You will join the engineering team that builds the Kong AI gateway, empowering companies and developers around the world to govern every step of their AI & LLM based innovation.

As a Software Engineer in the AI Gateway Team, you will be working on core features such as multi-LLM routing and balancing, semantic caching and routing, MCP, and more.

What You’ll Do:

• Responsible for building and maintaining API management software for AI and LLMs and its underlying stack.
• Implement new innovative features including proxying capabilities, load balancing, databases support that extend Kong AI Gateway’s offering.
• Bugs troubleshooting, performance tuning and low-level optimizations.
• Fill the gaps between Kong and third-party deployment platforms and tooling.
• Any additional tasks required by manager.

What You’ll Bring:

• 3+ years of programming in server-side applications and components.
• Hands on experience with either Golang or Rust
• Experience building and debugging applications that are highly scalable, distributed, reliable and resilient.
• Solid hands-on low-level technical expertise in Linux systems troubleshooting, and profiling
• Experience in distributed systems, Linux networking stack and computer systems programming, Kong works with APIs on both L7 and L4 transports and protocols, so this expertise and knowledge are required.
• Comfortable working with a remotely distributed team.
• Strong sense of ownership and excellent verbal and written communication skills – engineers at Kong write the documentation for their products
• Familiarity with AI LLM concepts and applications development

Bonus Points:

• Hands on experience with NGINX/OpenResty/Kong/LuaJIT.
• Hands on experience with Envoy or Istio.

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 J-18808-Ljbffr