Senior Manager, AI Connectivity Delivery

kong; United States; On-site; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Kong is seeking a Professional Services Manager to lead a team of Forward Deployed Engineers and Engagement Managers in the US. You will own end-to-end delivery outcomes, staffing, and the growth of engineers who work directly with enterprise client teams.

This leadership role emphasizes outcomes, not activities, and requires you to coach teams, clear blockers, and drive go-live success. You will collaborate with Solutions Architects, Sales, Customer Success, and Product teams to scope

Qualifications

• 8+ years in customer-facing engineering, professional services, or platform engineering.
• 2+ years directly managing a technical, customer-facing team.
• Delivery leadership experience in API gateways or API management projects.

Responsibilities

• Manage and grow a team of Forward Deployed Engineers and Engagement Managers – hiring, coaching, career development, and performance management.
• Own delivery outcomes across your book of business: go-live dates, technical quality and customer satisfaction.
• Staff the right FDE and Engagement Manager to each engagement based on account complexity, technical scope, and team capacity.
• Be the senior escalation point on at-risk or high-complexity engagements – drive resolution and lead the team’s response.
• Run your team’s operating cadence: staffing reviews, at-risk reviews, 1:1s and status reporting to leadership.
• Partner with Sales, Customer Success, and Solutions Architecture to scope new engagements and ensure smooth handoffs.
• Set and enforce delivery standards across your team – reusable accelerators, reference architectures, best practices.
• Provide field learnings to Kong Product and Engineering to shape the roadmap.
• Lead strategic initiatives like AI connectivity, governance, platform modernization and cloud-native transformation.

Skills

Leadership

Delivery leadership

API gateways

API management

Customer-facing

Job description

Kong is seeking a Professional Services Manager to lead a team of Forward Deployed Engineers and Engagement Managers in the US. You will own end-to-end delivery outcomes, staffing, and the growth of engineers who work directly with enterprise client teams.

This leadership role emphasizes outcomes, not activities, and requires you to coach teams, clear blockers, and drive go-live success. You will collaborate with Solutions Architects, Sales, Customer Success, and Product teams to scope