Senior Software Engineer, AI Gateway - Shanghai

Kong; United States; Remote; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Kong Inc. is seeking a Systems Engineer to design, build, and maintain its core API management stack. You’ll work on proxying, load balancing, and database support, delivering scalable, distributed systems with strong Linux expertise.

You will engage with the open source community, optimize performance, and collaborate with a globally distributed team. A strong background in APIs, networking, and AI concepts is essential.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in server-side programming.
• Experience designing, prototyping, building and debugging scalable distributed systems.
• Strong Linux systems troubleshooting and profiling skills.
• Knowledge of API transportation protocols (L7/L4).
• Comfortable working with a remotely distributed team.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, documentation ownership.
• Familiarity with AI/LLM concepts and applications development.

Responsibilities

• Design, build and maintain API management software and its stack.
• Architect and implement new features including proxying, load balancing, and DB support.
• Troubleshoot bugs, tune performance and optimize low-level code; engage with open source community.
• Bridge Kong with third-party deployment platforms and tooling.
• Handle additional tasks as assigned by management.

Skills

Server-side programming

Distributed systems design

Linux troubleshooting

Networking (L7/L4)

Remote/distributed teamwork

Documentation writing

AI/LLM concepts familiarity

Tools

OpenResty

LuaJIT

NGINX

Envoy

Istio

Rust

Job description

Are you ready to unlock intelligence?

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

Kong is an open-source project with a global adoption around the world. Developers and architects are adopting Kong in production among a large variety of use‑cases, and actively help make Kong a better product with their feedback and contributions.

As a Systems Engineer in the Core Team, you will be working on core features such as proxying capabilities, load balancing, and database support with forward‑thinking. You will be responsible for building foundations for other teams and customers, discovering and producing cutting edge industry trends and use‑cases.

What You’ll Do:

• Responsible for designing, building and maintaining API management software and its underlying stack.
• Architecture, design, and implement new innovative features including proxying capabilities, load balancing, databases support that extend Kong’s offering.
• Bugs troubleshooting, performance tuning and low-level optimizations. Engage with open source community and extend Kong core to support the latest industry trends.
• Fill the gaps between Kong and third-party deployment platforms and tooling.
• And any additional tasks required by manager.

What You’ll Bring:

• 8+ years of programming in server-side applications and components.
• Experience designing, prototyping, 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.
• Hands on experience with Rust

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 www.konghq.com.