Forward Deployed Engineer

Role Description

We are seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) to join Kong’s growing Professional Services organization. This is a highly strategic, customer-facing engineering role focused on helping enterprise customers accelerate adoption of Kong’s API and AI Connectivity platform through hands-on implementation, automation, migration tooling, and solution engineering.

• Work directly alongside customer engineering teams to solve complex technical challenges.
• Accelerate migrations, build reusable automation, and deliver production-grade solutions in real-world enterprise environments.
• Operate at the intersection of software engineering, architecture, platform engineering, and customer delivery.
• Collaborate closely with Solutions Architects, Engagement Managers, Product Engineering, Customer Success, and Product teams.
• Make a massive impact on Fortune 50/500 customers as they modernize mission-critical systems for the AI era.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in customer-facing engineering, platform engineering, professional services, site reliability engineering, or software engineering roles.
• Strong hands-on software engineering and implementation experience.
• Experience with API gateways, API management, integrations, or distributed systems platforms.
• Strong Kubernetes and cloud-native infrastructure expertise.
• Experience building automation frameworks, deployment tooling, CI/CD pipelines, or migration tooling.
• Strong proficiency in Linux, networking, cloud infrastructure, and DevOps practices.
• Experience with major cloud providers including AWS, Azure, or GCP.
• Programming experience in languages such as Python, Go, Java, JavaScript, or Lua.
• Experience with Infrastructure-as-Code and automation tooling such as Terraform, Helm, Ansible, or GitOps frameworks.
• Prior experience working in API Management, Open Source, Middleware, SaaS, or Infrastructure software companies is highly preferred.

Requirements

• Strong builder mindset with the ability to solve complex technical problems with minimal supervision.
• Comfortable operating in ambiguous, fast-moving enterprise environments.
• Passion for working directly with customers and delivering measurable business outcomes.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills across technical and executive audiences.
• Highly organized with strong prioritization and execution skills.
• Passion for innovation, modern infrastructure, APIs, AI, and cloud-native technologies.
• Team-oriented with a strong sense of ownership and accountability.

Benefits

• Impact: Work directly with some of the world’s largest enterprises to modernize API infrastructure and accelerate AI adoption through Kong’s connectivity platform.
• Growth: Accelerate your technical and professional growth through exposure to cutting-edge cloud-native technologies, distributed systems, AI connectivity, automation frameworks, and large-scale enterprise architectures.
• Opportunity: Be part of a rapidly growing Professional Services organization that is shaping how enterprises adopt APIs, AI gateways, and modern connectivity platforms globally.