Staff Software Engineer, Identity and Access Management

Kong Inc.; United States; Remote; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Kong Inc. is seeking a Staff Software Engineer for the Konnect team to architect Kong Identity's multi-tenant platform, delivering scalable, secure identity services.

You will design and implement token management, advanced policy engines, and enterprise federation while optimizing for low-latency authentication across regions. This role emphasizes security, observability, and a superior developer experience.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience building production identity platforms.
• Experience handling millions of authentication requests daily.
• Deep expertise in advanced identity concepts and security controls.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement advanced token management systems with real-time revocation.
• Lead development of extensible claims engine for dynamic attribute resolution.
• Architect global identity infrastructure with edge optimization and cross-region replication.
• Design rate limiting, anomaly detection, and fraud prevention for credential stuffing.
• Build enterprise identity federation capabilities and legacy system adapters.
• Lead developer experience initiatives including SDKs, webhooks, and audit logging.
• Architect plugin architecture enabling custom grant flows and integrations.
• Contribute to compliance frameworks and privacy-preserving token designs.

Skills

Token management systems

Claims engine

Identity infrastructure

Edge optimization

Security controls

Developer experience

Token issuance

Authentication latency

Federation

Job description

About the Role

Kong is building the future of API management for developers. We’re a fast-growing, well-funded company with happy customers and motivated employees. Insomnia, acquired in 2019, is a full-lifecycle API development platform that has quickly become an integral part of Kong’s product portfolio.As a Staff Software Engineer on the Konnect team at Kong, you’ll architect Kong Identity's multi-tenant identity platform supporting complex organizational hierarchies, cross-tenant isolation, and enterprise-grade security controls.

What You’ll Do

• Design and implement advanced token management systems, including refresh token rotation, proof-of-possession tokens, and custom token introspection with real-time revocation capabilities.
• Lead development of Kong Identity's extensible claims engine supporting dynamic attribute resolution, contextual claim injection, and complex business logic evaluation at token issuance.
• Architect global identity infrastructure with edge optimization, intelligent token caching, and cross-region replication strategies for sub-millisecond authentication latency worldwide.
• Design sophisticated rate limiting, anomaly detection, and fraud prevention systems to protect against credential stuffing, token abuse, and distributed attacks.
• Build enterprise identity federation capabilities, including SAML bridge patterns, external IdP chaining, and custom protocol adapters for legacy system integration.
• Lead technical strategy for Kong Identity's developer experience, including SDKs, webhooks, audit logging, and real-time analytics dashboards for token lifecycle visibility.
• Architect advanced client management systems supporting dynamic client registration, automated credential rotation, and programmatic policy enforcement.
• Design Kong Identity's plugin architecture enables custom grant flows, protocol extensions, and third-party integrations while maintaining security boundaries.
• Drive implementation of compliance frameworks (SOC 2, FedRAMP, GDPR), including comprehensive audit trails, data residency controls, and privacy-preserving token designs.
• Lead technical initiatives for Kong Identity's integration with observability platforms, supporting distributed tracing, metrics collection, and security event correlation.
• Mentor engineering teams on advanced identity concepts including zero-trust architectures, workload identity, and service mesh integration patterns.

What You’ll Bring

• 7+ years of experience building production identity platforms at leading identity providers or enterprise software companies, with proven track record of handling millions of authentication requests daily.
• Deep expertise in advanc