Jobs with Startups
JobsStartupsInvestorsMCP
JobsKong

Staff Software Engineer, AI Gateway - Shanghai

Kong logo

Kong

Developer Tools

Staff Software Engineer, AI Gateway - Shanghai

China-Shanghai
On-site
Full-time
Posted Mar 16, 2026
Apply on company site

Opens the original job posting

All Cost Center
ENG
On-site

Are you ready to power the World's connections?

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.

Are you ready to power the World's connections?

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 be doing:

  • 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:

  • 10+ 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

#LI-WL1

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.

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.

Apply for this role
Kong logo

Kong

Company profile

API gateway and service connectivity platform.

View Kong

Headquarters

San Francisco, CA, USA

Keep exploring

More roles at Kong

View all roles

Enterprise Account Executive, Benelux

All Cost Center · Netherlands; Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands

Senior Staff Engagement Manager

All Cost Center · Pennsylvania, United States; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United States

Staff Product Manager, AI Management

All Cost Center · Milan, Italy; Milano, Milano, Italy

Account Development Representative (Fed)

All Cost Center · Virginia, United States; Richmond, Virginia, United States

Administrative Assistant-EMEA & APJ

All Cost Center · Bangalore, India; Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Jobs with Startups © 2026

Browse startupsBrowse jobsMCP guideAboutPowered by Supabase