Staff Forward-Deployed AI & API Engineer

NEPSE Trading; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 192,000 - 274,000; Full time

Job summary

Kong Inc. is seeking a Staff Forward Deployed Engineer to join the Professional Services team. This remote role focuses on hands-on implementation, automation, migration tooling, and solution engineering for enterprise clients adopting Kong’s API and AI Connectivity platform.

You will work closely with customer engineers, architects, security teams, and executives to deliver production-grade solutions across cloud, hybrid, and on-prem environments, driving modernization and scalable automation.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of hands-on, customer-facing engineering experience.
• Experience with API gateways, API management, or distributed systems.
• Strong Linux, cloud, and DevOps skills; proficiency in Python/Go/Java/JS/Lua.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and implement Kong-based solutions across cloud, hybrid, and on-prem environments.
• Develop automation frameworks, migration tooling, and reusable accelerators for customer adoption.
• Lead production-grade code, scripts, plugins, and CI/CD integrations for customer engagements.
• Collaborate with Product and Engineering teams to influence roadmap from field feedback.
• Support strategic customer initiatives involving AI connectivity and platform modernization.

Skills

Kubernetes

Cloud platforms (AWS/Azure/GCP)

Python

Go

CI/CD pipelines

Terraform/GitOps

Linux networking

Tools

Kong API Gateway

Job description

Kong Inc. is seeking a Staff Forward Deployed Engineer to join the Professional Services team. This remote role focuses on hands-on implementation, automation, migration tooling, and solution engineering for enterprise clients adopting Kong’s API and AI Connectivity platform.

You will work closely with customer engineers, architects, security teams, and executives to deliver production-grade solutions across cloud, hybrid, and on-prem environments, driving modernization and scalable automation.