7+ years of experience in engineering enterprise-grade production software.
Mastery of modern backend stack (e.g., Golang) and API architecture.
Hands-on experience with autonomous agent applications and tool-calling systems.
Familiarity with multi-tenant architectures and usage-based metering pipelines.
Strong written communication skills, particularly in remote work environments.
Responsibilities
Architect and own full-stack marketplace loop tools and REST API systems.
Design agent-native user experiences with robust protocols and test environments.
Build reliable transaction infrastructure with identity verification and complex settlement.
Collaborate across engineering teams to integrate marketplace features.
Lead architectural reviews and promote a zero-technical-debt culture.
Mentor engineers to translate product bets into clear technical milestones.
Document and specify all systems architected throughout the technical lifecycle.
Benefits
Opportunity to work in an autonomous startup-like environment within Kong.
Engage in cutting-edge projects that are at the forefront of machine-to-machine commerce.
Collaborative culture with cross-functional team dynamics.
Professional development through mentorship opportunities.
Contribution to shaping company direction and innovation.
Full Job Description
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).
