Lead Architect, AI‑Driven API & Marketplace Infra

Kong; United States; On-site; USD 180,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Kong Inc. is seeking a seasoned architect to join a zero-to-one engineering squad building the coordination fabric for agent-to-API and agent-to-agent transactions on Kong's runtime stack. You will own the end-to-end design and delivery of high-performance marketplace surfaces.

You’ll mentor engineers, translate product bets into concrete milestones, document architectures, and collaborate across gateway runtime, security plugins, and core teams to scale distributed systems at global scale.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience engineering enterprise-grade production software.
• Expertise with a modern backend stack (Golang or similar).
• Deep architectural command of API infrastructure, Kubernetes, and cloud-native patterns.
• Experience with multi-tenant architectures, usage-based metering pipelines, and secure data exchange.
• Strong written communication and ability to work in distributed global teams.

Responsibilities

• Architect end-to-end full-stack surfaces of the marketplace loop, delivering high-performance tools and REST API substrate.
• Design agent-native UX, MCP server capabilities, sandboxed test environments, and CLI/SDK workflows.
• Scale transaction infrastructure with identity verification, metering, and multi-party settlement pipelines.
• Drive cross-functional execution with gateway runtime, security plugins, and core teams for integration.
• Lead architectural design reviews and prevent scaling bottlenecks in distributed backends.
• Mentor engineers and translate product bets into defined, shippable milestones.
• Own documentation and product specifications for all systems you architect.

Skills

Distributed systems

Golang backend

API architecture

Kubernetes

Cloud-native patterns

Technical leadership

Remote collaboration

Tools

Kong Konnect

Job description

Kong Inc. is seeking a seasoned architect to join a zero-to-one engineering squad building the coordination fabric for agent-to-API and agent-to-agent transactions on Kong's runtime stack. You will own the end-to-end design and delivery of high-performance marketplace surfaces.

You’ll mentor engineers, translate product bets into concrete milestones, document architectures, and collaborate across gateway runtime, security plugins, and core teams to scale distributed systems at global scale.