---
title: 'Senior Software Engineering Manager, Managed Gateways SREs at Kong'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineering-manager-managed-gateways-sres-kong-washington-528c5w2a7gq3'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-11'
---

# Senior Software Engineering Manager, Managed Gateways SREs at Kong

- **Company:** [Kong](https://feeny.ai/companies/kong)
- **Location:** Washington, DC
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-07-23
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-11
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/kong/da83b9b4-a4ab-40af-99ac-0c3fabae3cc5

## 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.

Senior Software Engineering Manager, Managed Gateways SREs Location:Washington

The Mission: As a Senior Software Engineering Manager for Managed Gateways SREs, you will lead the charge in defining the reliability, scalability, and operational excellence of Kong's critical managed services. Your team's unwavering commitment to 99.99%+ uptime and seamless performance directly empowers developers globally, fueling the Agentic Era by providing the robust infrastructure that underpins modern API-driven applications. You'll build this team in Toronto from the ground up, and in the early stages, you'll stay hands-on - directly in the work, not just directing it from a distance.

What You'll Do:

- Build Kong's Managed Gateways SRE team in Seattle, Washington from the ground up - hiring, setting the bar, and staying hands-on in enterprise implementations as the team ramps.
- Act as a direct contributor to critical implementations and reliability work in the early stages, with outcomes that materially move the needle on Managed Gateways' growth and business performance.
- Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing team of Site Reliability Engineers dedicated to Kong's Managed Gateway offerings, in direct support of our critical enterprise customer base across the Americas and Europe.
- Architect and implement robust, scalable, and fault-tolerant cloud-native systems using technologies like Kubernetes, Golang, and major cloud providers.
- Own the end-to-end operational lifecycle, from proactive monitoring and alerting to incident response and blameless post-mortems, ensuring continuous service improvement.
- Drive developer delight and operational efficiency through automation, self-service tooling, and streamlined workflows for deploying and managing API gateways, while proactively preventing technical debt and reducing operational toil.
- Define, track, and report on key SLOs and SLIs, and advocate for architectural best practices that keep Managed Gateways performant and resilient as it scales.
- Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, engineering, and support teams to influence roadmap decisions and ensure operational readiness for new features.

What You'll Bring: The Toolkit

- Proven experience leading and managing Site Reliability Engineering or DevOps teams in a fast-paced, high-growth environment.
- Deep expertise in designing, deploying, and operating highly available distributed systems on cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
- Extensive hands-on experience with Kubernetes (k8s) and container orchestration in production environments.
- Proficiency in Golang or similar modern programming languages for infrastructure automation and service development.
- Strong understanding of observability principles and experience with tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, or similar.
- Demonstrated ability to manage critical incidents, perform root cause analysis, and implement effective preventative measures.
- Familiarity with API gateway technologies, service mesh, or network proxies is a significant plus.

The Kong DNA

- Ownership: You take full responsibility for the reliability and performance of systems, driving initiatives from conception to completion.
- Urgency: You thrive in dynamic environments, prioritizing critical issues and delivering impactful solutions with speed and precision.
- Collaboration: You build strong relationships, foster open communication, and work effectively across global teams to achieve shared goals.

Bonus Points:

- Experience with open-source contributions or active participation in SRE/cloud-native communities.
- Certifications in cloud platforms (e.g., AWS Certified DevOps Engineer) or Kubernetes (e.g., CKA, CKAD).
- Background in companies focused on developer tools, infrastructure software, or API management.

## #LI-KC1

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)

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