Lead API Platform Engineer (P181)

84.51 is a retail data science, insights and media company. We help The Kroger Co., consumer packaged goods companies, agencies, publishers and affiliates create more personalized and valuable experiences for shoppers across the path to purchase. Powered by cutting-edge science, we utilize first-party retail data from more than 62 million U.S. households sourced through the Kroger Plus loyalty card program to fuel a more customer‑centric journey using 84.51 Insights, 84.51 Loyalty Marketing and our retail media advertising solution, Kroger Precision Marketing. 84.51 follows a 5-day in-office work schedule to support collaboration, alignment, and team connection. Join us at 84.51! __________________________________________________________ Lead API Platform Engineer (Cincinnati / Chicago) P181 About 84.51 84.51 is a data science and technology company (owned by Kroger) that turns customer data into decisions that improve how people shop. Engineers here work with modern cloud and data tech at meaningful scale, alongside product, data science, and business teams. The role We’re hiring a Lead API Platform Engineer to join our Application Delivery team within Platform Engineering. This is an individual contributor (IC) technical lead role, owning the API gateway experience end-to-end – from pre-production through production. You’ll help shape technical direction, mentor engineers, and continuously improve our on‑call/escalation rotation – participating and fielding gateway‑related production issues when on rotation. If you meet most—but not all—requirements, we still encourage you to apply. What you’ll do Own our gateway platforms: Maintain and evolve our Kong Enterprise API Gateway and Azure Application Gateway configurations, standards, and best practices—and help design what’s next. Strengthen API security: Implement and promote API security standards, including OAuth2, JWT, and SAML , along with access controls and encryption. Improve reliability and performance: Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize using Datadog . Tune latency, caching behavior, and rate limiting to support high‑performing APIs. Automate delivery: Build and maintain automation and CI/CD workflows (using GitHub Actions ) for gateway deployments and policy/configuration updates. Enable great developer experience: Improve how teams build and test APIs by standardizing gateway onboarding, providing self‑service patterns, and supporting reliable local development workflows (e.g., local gateway tooling, mock/test routes, and clear "run it locally" docs). Shape work for success: define and decompose scope into ready-to-build requirements (clear user stories and acceptance criteria), aligning on delivery standards, and proactively removing blockers to keep execution on track. Support production operations: Provide L2/L3 support, participate in an on-call rotation, lead root‑cause analysis, and drive permanent fixes. Collaborate and document: Partner with development, QA, security, and architecture teams. Create clear documentation, SOPs, and onboarding materials to help teams ship confidently. What we’re looking for Bachelor's degree (Master's degree desired) typically in Computer Science, Management Information Systems, Mathematics, Business Analytics or another technically strong program. 5+ years of hands‑on experience operating API gateways in production environments (especially Kong ) Strong API fundamentals (REST, JSON) and security best practices Experience working in a public cloud environment, plus solid networking knowledge (DNS, firewalls, load balancers) – Azure preferred but not required Comfort scripting and/or coding in one or more languages (e.g., Python, Shell, Java, Node.js ) Familiarity with DevOps/Agile practices, Docker/Kubernetes/Helm , and Terraform (or other IaC tools) Clear communication skills and a collaborative mindset in a fast‑moving environment Pay Transparency and Benefits The stated salary range represents the entire span applicable across all geographic markets from lowest to highest. Actual salary offers will be determined by multiple factors including but not limited to geographic location, relevant experience, knowledge, skills, other job‑related qualifications, and alignment with market data and cost of labor. In addition to salary, this position is also eligible for variable compensation. Below is a list of some of the benefits we offer our associates: Health: Medical: with competitive plan designs and support for self‑care, wellness and mental health. Dental: with in‑network and out‑of‑network benefit. Vision: with in‑network and out‑of‑network benefit. Wealth: 401(k) with Roth option and matching contribution. Health Savings Account with matching contribution (requires participation in qualifying medical plan). AD&D and supplemental insurance options to help ensure additional protection for you. Happiness: Paid time off with flexibility to meet your life needs, including 5 weeks of vacation time, 7 health and wellness days, 3 floating holidays, as well as 6 company‑paid holidays per year. Paid leave for maternity, paternity and family care instances. Pay Range

$125,000-$207,000 USD