--- title: 'Senior Software Engineer, AI Gateway - Shanghai at Kong' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineer-ai-gateway-shanghai-kong-shanghai-82xbkyvbakm5' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-10-23' --- # Senior Software Engineer, AI Gateway - Shanghai at Kong - **Company:** [Kong](https://feeny.ai/companies/kong) - **Location:** Shanghai, China - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-10-23 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-23 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/kong/b276f79f-d60e-44d0-9786-1e3cc874d909 ## 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: - 5+ 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](http://www.konghq.com). ## About Kong ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Kong provides a unified API and AI platform that connects, secures, and manages APIs, events, and AI agents for modern architectures. - **Entity Type**: Private – Series E, post‑money valuation $2B (2023) - **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States - **Founded**: 2017 (company formalized; roots as Mashape go back to 2009) - **Founders**: Augusto “Aghi” Marietti (CEO) and Marco Palladino (CTO) ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: API management, AI connectivity, cloud infrastructure - **Target customers**: B2B – enterprises, platform engineering teams, developers, and product managers building API‑driven or AI‑agent applications - **Mission / Purpose**: To be the AI connectivity company – enabling organizations to connect, govern, and monetize APIs, events, and AI workloads at scale. ## Products & Services - **[Kong Konnect](https://konghq.com/)**: Managed, unified API and AI platform covering the full lifecycle – design, test, publish, govern, monetize – across any cloud or environment. SaaS. - **[Kong Gateway](https://konghq.com/)**: Open‑source (and enterprise) API gateway, the world’s most adopted, used for traffic management, security, and observability. Open‑source hybrid. - **[Kong AI Gateway](https://konghq.com/)**: Extension for managing and securing AI traffic – token consumption, cost control, and agent governance. SaaS / add‑on. - **[Kong Mesh](https://konghq.com/)**: Enterprise service mesh for Kubernetes and VMs (based on Kuma, donated to CNCF). Infrastructure. - **[Insomnia](https://konghq.com/)**: API design and testing tool (acquired and integrated into the Kong ecosystem). Desktop / CLI. - **[OpenMeter](https://konghq.com/)**: Usage‑based billing, entitlements, and invoicing for APIs, events, and AI (acquired 2025). SaaS. ## Market Standing - **Valuation / Market Cap**: $2 billion (as of late 2023 Series E round) – not publicly traded. - **Key Metric**: Surpassed **$100M ARR** in late 2023; processes **+1 trillion API/AI requests per day**; **600+ employees** in 25+ countries (LinkedIn reports 738 employees with +23.5% YoY growth). - **Total Funding**: **$344.1M** across 6 rounds (including Series D $100M at $1.4B, and Series E $175M led by new investors). - **Notable Investors / Partners**: Include large institutional investors; partners include cloud providers and enterprises such as United Airlines (cited as customer). Open‑source community with 182K+ community users. ## Competitive Advantages - **Most adopted open‑source API gateway** – strong developer mindshare and large community. - **Unified platform** covering the entire API lifecycle plus AI agent management, reducing fragmentation for enterprises. - **High‑performance, low‑latency** – proven at hyper‑volume (+1T requests/day), 99.99% availability SLA. - **Strategic acquisitions** (Kuma, Insomnia, OpenMeter) that plug gaps in service mesh, developer tooling, and usage‑based billing. - **Strong enterprise DNA** – trusted by global brands for mission‑critical applications. ## Strategic Focus - **AI connectivity** – building the layer to manage LLM traffic, agent security, token cost, and real‑time data streams. - **Monetization** – enabling customers to monetize APIs and AI consumption (chargeback, entitlements, pricing). - **Developer productivity** – accelerating onboarding and reducing costs (claims 15% faster development, 57% operational cost reduction). - **Global scale** – growing remote workforce and entering new geographic markets (e.g., Italy, ANZ roles posted). ## Why Work Here - **Remote‑first culture** – 600+ employees across 25+ countries; strong emphasis on global collaboration. - **Perks & benefits** (from [careers page](https://konghq.com/company/careers)): - Stock options for most employees - 4‑week paid sabbatical every 5 years - Flexible time off - Home office stipend - Regular “unplug days” (company‑wide long weekends) - Virtual events (Donut chats, trivia, fitness challenges) - **Engineering culture** – values “owners, explorers, real, unstoppable” and encourages individual innovation. Focus on shipping fast and high trust. - **Growth trajectory** – company is scaling (+23.5% headcount YoY) and is a unicorn with clear product‑market fit in a hot market (AI + API management). - **Open roles** – 93 open positions across engineering, sales, solutions, customer success, and marketing. ## Sources 1. [konghq.com](https://konghq.com/) 2. [konghq.com/company/careers](https://konghq.com/company/careers) 3. [konghq.com/company/about-us](https://konghq.com/company/about-us) 4. [linkedin.com/company/konghq](https://www.linkedin.com/company/konghq) 5. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/kong](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/kong) ## Other roles at Kong - [Software Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-kong-toronto-ne45h08m22tn) — Toronto, Canada - [Senior Software Engineer, API Gateway - Shanghai](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineer-api-gateway-shanghai-kong-shanghai-sp785tczeab1) — Shanghai, China - [Senior Software Engineer, AI Gateway - Shanghai](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineer-ai-gateway-shanghai-kong-shanghai-atc2whqdsptk) — Shanghai, China - [Senior Software Engineer, AI Gateway - Shanghai](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineer-ai-gateway-shanghai-kong-shanghai-p6w8bt2yp5gx) — Shanghai, China - [Enterprise Account Executive](https://feeny.ai/job/enterprise-account-executive-kong-london-339txyehwz35) — London, United Kingdom - [Strategic Account Executive](https://feeny.ai/job/strategic-account-executive-kong-london-k1t86bqwrt2c) — London, United Kingdom - [Developer Advocate - Volcano](https://feeny.ai/job/developer-advocate-volcano-kong-united-states-1a1j74qff350) — United States - [Senior Staff Technical Support Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-staff-technical-support-engineer-kong-united-states-y006s8z75d70) — United States - [Enterprise Account Executive - Public Sector](https://feeny.ai/job/enterprise-account-executive-public-sector-kong-washington-rgkkv2hn99y6) — Washington, DC - [Staff Solutions Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-solutions-engineer-kong-sweden-mvjn3kr93n7g) — Sweden