Staff Identity Platform Architect — Core Konnect

Kong; San Francisco (CA, WA); Hybrid; USD 230,000 - 310,000; Full time

Job summary

Kong is seeking a Staff Software Engineer on the Konnect team to architect Kong Identity’s multi-tenant platform, enabling enterprise-grade security, cross-region replication, and real-time analytics. You will design token systems, extensible claims, and a world‑scale identity fabric across edge and cloud regions.

You’ll lead developer-facing features, SDKs, and audit tooling, while ensuring strict compliance and secure integration with SAML, OIDC, and other federation standards.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience building production identity platforms at leading identity providers or enterprise software companies.
• Deep expertise in OAuth 2.0 extensions (PKCE, mTLS, JWT bearer assertions, token exchange).
• Proven experience architecting multi-tenant identity platforms with complex isolation requirements.
• Strong cryptographic protocol background including JWT, key rotation, and HSM integration.
• Experience with analytics, real-time monitoring, and security event detection at scale.
• Global identity infrastructure including edge deployment and cross-region data consistency.
• Knowledge of SAML federation, LDAP/AD bridges, SCIM provisioning, and IDP adapters.
• Proven track record building developer-first identity platforms with SDKs and webhooks.
• Security-focused with threat modeling and advanced attack prevention.
• Experience with compliance—audit trails, data residency, privacy engineering.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement advanced token management systems with rotation and real-time revocation.
• Lead development of extensible claims engine with dynamic attribute resolution.
• Architect global identity infrastructure with sub-millisecond latency.
• Design rate limiting, anomaly detection, and fraud prevention for identity ops.
• Build enterprise identity federation and external IdP chaining.
• Lead technical strategy for developer experience including SDKs and webhooks.
• Architect client management systems for dynamic registration and credential rotation.
• Design plugin architecture for custom grant flows and protocol extensions.
• Drive compliance program covering SOC 2, GDPR, and data residency.

Skills

OAuth 2.0 extensions

PKCE

mTLS

JWT bearer assertions

OpenID Connect

multi-tenant identity

edge deployment

SAML federation

protocol extensions

security and compliance

Tools

SDKs

webhooks

audit logging

observability platforms

Job description

Kong is seeking a Staff Software Engineer on the Konnect team to architect Kong Identity’s multi-tenant platform, enabling enterprise-grade security, cross-region replication, and real-time analytics. You will design token systems, extensible claims, and a world‑scale identity fabric across edge and cloud regions.

You’ll lead developer-facing features, SDKs, and audit tooling, while ensuring strict compliance and secure integration with SAML, OIDC, and other federation standards.