---
title: 'Senior Staff Software Engineer - Agent Marketplace at Kong'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-staff-software-engineer-agent-marketplace-kong-san-francisco-rbwx3fyshwy7'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-06'
---

# Senior Staff Software Engineer - Agent Marketplace at Kong

- **Company:** [Kong](https://feeny.ai/companies/kong)
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-10-07
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-06
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/kong/ea7b507b-b249-4cf2-88ea-09fbbaf32acb

## 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: Architect the future of machine-to-machine commerce as a founding member of a zero-to-one engineering squad. You will design, build, and scale the coordination fabric for agent-to-API and agent-to-agent transactions—spanning discovery, identity, billing, and settlement—built directly on top of Kong’s world-class runtime stack. Operating as an autonomous startup unit inside Kong, this team is responsible for lowering organizational drag, unlocking engineering velocity, and establishing Kong’s absolute leadership in the Agentic Era.

What You’ll Do:

- Architect and own the end-to-end full-stack surfaces of the marketplace loop, delivering high-performance tools, the underlying REST API substrate, and developer-facing onboarding systems.
- Design the foundational agent-native user experience, creating robust Model Context Protocol (MCP) server capabilities, sandboxed test environments, and elegant CLI/SDK generation workflows.
- Scale and protect the transaction infrastructure by building high-reliability pipelines for programmatic identity verification, usage attribution, granular metering, and complex multi-party settlement.
- Drive cross-functional execution across Kong's engineering ecosystem, partnering with gateway runtime, security plugins, and global core teams to smoothly integrate marketplace features.
- Lead architectural design reviews and champion a zero-technical-debt culture while proactively preventing scaling bottlenecks across distributed backend components.
- Mentor engineers across the organization, multiplying the team's output by translating ambiguous product bets into highly defined, modular, and shippable technical milestones.
- Own the technical lifecycle completely by writing crystal-clear engineering documentation and product specifications for every system you architect.

What You’ll Bring:

- 7+ years of experience engineering enterprise-grade production software with a proven capability to design, build, and support complex distributed systems from scratch.
- Master-level expertise with a modern backend stack (such as Golang or similar systems languages) alongside deep architectural command of API infrastructure, Kubernetes, and cloud-native patterns.
- Extensive hands-on experience developing autonomous agent applications, tool-calling systems, prompt loops, or systems designed explicitly for machine consumption.
- Deep operational familiarity with multi-tenant architectures, usage-based metering pipelines, billing integration patterns, or secure data exchange layers.
- Strong written communication and technical articulation skills, with an unwavering comfort operating within remote, globally distributed engineering environments (West Coast/Bay Area alignment preferred).

## #LI-BR2

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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- [Commercial Account Executive](https://feeny.ai/job/commercial-account-executive-kong-singapore-2hwrft68j9kj) — Singapore
- [Commercial Account Executive](https://feeny.ai/job/commercial-account-executive-kong-australia-bfhqkn00krqb) — Australia
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