Staff Software Engineer, Konnect Core Platform

Socket.dev; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Kong Inc. is hiring a Staff Software Engineer for the Konnect team to architect and scale Kong Identity's multi-tenant platform with enterprise-grade security.

You will drive token management, extensible claims, and cross-region identity infrastructure to support low-latency authentication worldwide. You will mentor teams on zero-trust, workload identity, and service mesh integration while shaping developer experience through SDKs, webhooks, and observability integrations.

Qualifications

• 7+ years building production identity platforms at leading identity providers or enterprise software companies.
• Expertise in OAuth 2.0 extensions (PKCE, mTLS, JWT bearer assertions) and OpenID Connect profiles.
• Experience architecting multi-tenant identity platforms with complex isolation requirements.
• Cryptographic protocols including JWT patterns, key rotation, and HSM integration.
• Experience building analytics, real-time monitoring, and security event detection at enterprise scale.
• Knowledge of global and edge identity infrastructure and cross-region data consistency.
• Experience with SAML federation, LDAP/AD bridges, SCIM provisioning, and protocol adapters.
• Proven ability to build developer-first identity platforms with SDKs and webhooks.
• Security-focused, with threat modeling and penetration testing coordination.
• Awareness of regulatory requirements for identity systems (audit trails, data residency, privacy).
• Experience supporting complex organizational structures and fine-grained permissions.
• Expertise in high-performance design, caching, and latency optimization.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement token management systems including refresh token rotation and real-time revocation.
• Lead development of extensible claims engine for dynamic attribute resolution.
• Architect global identity infra with edge optimization and cross-region replication.
• Design rate limiting, anomaly detection, and fraud prevention for credential security.
• Build enterprise identity federation capabilities (SAML, IdP chaining).
• Lead tech strategy for developer experience (SDKs, webhooks, audit logging).
• Architect client management with dynamic registration and credential rotation.
• Design plugin architecture for custom grant flows and protocol extensions.
• Drive compliance framework implementations (SOC 2, GDPR) with audit trails.
• Lead integration with observability platforms for tracing and metrics.

Skills

OAuth 2.0

OpenID Connect

Multi-tenant

JWT crypto

Edge deployment

Token lifecycle

Developer experience

Compliance

System design

Cloud architecture

Tools

HSM integration

Security monitoring

Job description

Are you ready to unlock intelligence?

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 advanced OAuth 2.0 extensions (PKCE, mTLS, JWT bearer assertions, token exchange), OpenID Connect profiles, and emerging standards like OAuth 2.1 and GNAP.

• Proven experience architecting multi-tenant identity platforms with complex isolation requirements, tenant-specific configurations, and enterprise feature sets.

• Strong background in cryptographic protocols including advanced JWT patterns, key rotation strategies, Hardware Security Module (HSM) integration, and post-quantum cryptography considerations.

• Experience building identity platforms with sophisticated analytics, real-time monitoring, and security event detection capabilities at enterprise scale.

• Expertise in global identity infrastructure including edge deployment strategies, geo-distributed token validation, and cross-region data consistency patterns.

• Deep understanding of enterprise identity integration patterns including SAML federation, LDAP/AD bridges, SCIM provisioning, and custom protocol adapters.

• Proven track record building developer-first identity platforms including comprehensive SDKs, webhook systems, and extensible API designs.

• Experience with identity platform security including threat modeling, penetration testing coordination, and implementation of advanced attack prevention mechanisms.

• Strong background in compliance and regulatory requirements for identity systems including audit trail design, data residency controls, and privacy engineering.

• Experience building identity platforms supporting complex organizational structures, delegated administration, and fine-grained permission models.

• Expertise in high-performance system design including horizontal scaling strategies, caching architectures, and latency optimization for identity operations.

• Knowledge of service mesh identity patterns, workload identity bootstrapping, and integration with container orchestration platforms.

• Experience with identity protocol extensions, custom grant flows, and building extensible identity platforms that support diverse use cases.

• Proven ability to lead technical initiatives in complex, regulated environments while balancing innovation with security and compliance requirements.

#LI-AW1

About Kong:

Kong Inc., a leading developer of API and AI connectivity technologies, is building the infrastructure that powers the agentic era. Trusted by the Fortune 500 and startups alike, Kong's unified API and AI platform, Kong Konnect, enables organizations to secure, manage, accelerate, govern, and monetize the flow of intelligence across APIs and AI models. For more information, visit www.konghq.com.