Director of Engineering, API Management

Kong; United States; Remote; USD 215,000 - 281,000; Full time

Job summary

Join Kong as an Engineering Leader, where you will shape the future of SaaS API Management. You will lead a team of engineers, collaborate with product teams, and drive significant impact across global enterprises. This is a pivotal opportunity in a rapidly growing organization known for its robust product suite.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of engineering leadership experience.
• 5+ years managing managers at a Director level or higher.
• Experience in high-uptime SaaS platforms with 99.99% reliability.

Responsibilities

• Lead a high-performing team of engineers.
• Collaborate with Product to define a bold roadmap.
• Drive business impact through API Management.

Skills

Leadership

SaaS Architecture

Operational Excellence

Cost Management

AWS Experience

Job description

Are you ready to power the World's connections?

About The Role

Join us at a pivotal moment in Kong’s journey. As we scale our flagship API Management capability within the Konnect platform, we're seeking a seasoned engineering leader to shape the future of an integrated SaaS offering that includes our Developer Portal, Service Catalog, and API Productization capabilities. These products are not only critical to our growth strategy—with independent revenue targets and strong early traction—but they also represent our vision to lead the API Management space. This is a rare opportunity to have an outsized impact on a high-visibility, high-growth part of the business at a company shaping the future of connectivity.

In this role, you’ll lead a 30-person engineering organization across three core teams:

Developer Portal, Service Catalog, and Integrations. You’ll bring strong architectural instincts, hands-on engineering leadership, and the operational rigor to scale a fast-growing platform. Engineering Managers at Kong are technical leaders, expected to engage deeply in design reviews, architectural decisions, and strategic planning. You’ll work closely with Product leadership to drive innovation and define market direction—this is not just about running an existing product line, but about building what’s next.

This role will report to the Vice President of Cloud Engineering.

What you'll Do:

• Lead and grow a high-performing team of engineers who are passionate about building world-class developer experiences and API infrastructure.
• Collaborate closely with Product to define and execute a bold, forward-thinking roadmap that sets the standard for API Management across the industry.
• Establish yourself and your team as visionary leaders in the API Management space, shaping the direction of the market with innovative thinking and execution.
• Build for resilience and scale, ensuring our SaaS platform is robust, reliable, and ready for global demand.
• Engage with some of the world’s largest enterprises, helping Fortune 1000 companies solve complex API Management challenges at scale.
• Drive tangible business impact by contributing directly to revenue goals in one of Kong’s fastest-growing product areas.
• Monitor and manage infrastructure and operational costs to ensure we scale efficiently without compromising performance or reliability.

What You'll Bring:

• Deep, hands-on experience building and scaling SaaS products from the ground up: you’ve done this before and know what both success and misfires look like.
• A strong track record of leading high-uptime, customer-facing SaaS platforms, with experience delivering software that operates at 99.99% reliability or better.
• Proven ability to manage costs while maintaining performance and healthy margins.
• 10+ years of engineering leadership experience, including 5+ years as a manager of managers and prior ownership at a Director-level or higher.
• Demonstrated success operating and scaling engineering teams within fast-paced, high-growth environments.
• Deep familiarity with SaaS architecture and operational practices on AWS. Experience specifically on AWS is a hard requirement.
• A steady, seasoned presence—you’ve “been around the block,” know how to navigate ambiguity, and thrive when leading through change and complexity.

About Kong:

Kong is THE cloud native API platform with the fastest, most adopted API gateway in the world (over 300m downloads!). As the innovation leader of cloud API technologies, Kong is on a mission to enable companies around the world to become "API-first" and securely accelerate AI adoption. Kong helps organizations globally - from startups to Fortune 500 enterprises - unleash developer productivity, build securely and accelerate to market.

83% of web traffic today is API calls! APIs are the connective tissue of the cloud and the underlying technology that allows software to talk and interact with one another. Therefore, we believe that APIs act as the nervous system of the cloud. Our audacious mission is to build the nervous system that will safely and reliably connect all of humankind!

For more information about Kong, please visit konghq.com or follow @thekonginc on Twitter. We are an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or veteran status. The compensation pay range for the role is USD 215,460 - 280,040.