Engineering Manager, Managed Gateways Infrastructure

• *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.

• *The Mission**
• --------------

Kong Cloud Gateways is Kong's foundational cloud\-native **SaaS** platform, powering its managed API and AI Gateway offerings. It provides a **multi\-tenant** control plane, automation, and platform services that let customers securely deploy, operate, and scale dedicated gateway infrastructure with the simplicity of a fully managed cloud service. Behind that experience sits a distributed platform responsible for provisioning, fleet management, software lifecycle, zero\-downtime upgrades, observability, security, and multi\-region operations across globally distributed cloud infrastructure \- built to a target of 99\.99% availability, balancing reliability, performance, operational excellence, and infrastructure efficiency at global **SaaS** scale.

As a Software Engineering Manager for Managed Gateways Infrastructure, you will own and grow Kong's Bangalore\-based engineering team, taking full accountability for this **multi\-tenant SaaS** platform. Kong Cloud Gateways is growing 100% YoY, and as enterprises increasingly adopt AI alongside traditional APIs, this platform becomes an increasingly important part of Kong's API and AI strategy \- every improvement in automation, scalability, and operational excellence you drive accelerates new platform capabilities and lets product teams innovate faster. Beyond the technical charter, you play a key role in shaping a dynamic engineering culture \- one built on urgency, ownership, and first\-principles thinking \- as the team scales to match the pace of the business.

This is a highly technical, hands\-on leadership role \- you're expected to stay close to the systems, dig into hard problems alongside your team, and not hesitate to get into the trenches when it matters.

• *What You'll Do**
• -----------------

• Own and grow Kong's Managed Gateways Infrastructure engineering team in Bangalore \- scaling the team's capability, raising the technical bar, and staying hands\-on in critical implementations and incidents, not just directing from a distance.
• Own the reliability and scalability of a multi\-tenant SaaS infrastructure platform serving customers across regions and clouds \- every architectural decision has to hold up under multi\-tenant load, isolation, and blast\-radius considerations, not just single\-tenant assumptions.
• **Drive 4\-9s (99\.99%\+)** availability across Kong's global infrastructure footprint \- owning capacity, resilience, and failure\-mode design across multi\-region, multi\-cloud deployments (AWS, Azure, GCP) so Cloud Gateways stays up for customers everywhere, at any scale.
• Act as a direct technical contributor when it counts \- complex incidents, architecture reviews, and high\-stakes implementations that materially move the needle on Managed Gateways' growth and reliability.
• Lead, mentor, and grow a high\-performing engineering team building and operating Kong's **SaaS** infrastructure for Managed Gateways, in direct support of our critical enterprise customer base globally.
• Architect and implement robust, scalable, and fault\-tolerant cloud\-native systems using technologies like Kubernetes, Golang, and major cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Own the complete operational lifecycle end\-to\-end \- infrastructure, reliability, on\-call, incident response, and blameless post\-mortems \- as one integrated engineering charter, not a separate function.
• Drive developer delight and operational efficiency through automation, self\-service tooling, and streamlined workflows for deploying and managing API gateways, while proactively preventing technical debt and reducing operational toil.
• Define, track, and report on key SLOs and SLIs, and advocate for architectural best practices that keep Managed Gateways performant and resilient as it scales.
• Collaborate cross\-functionally with Product, engineering, and support teams to influence roadmap decisions and ensure operational readiness for new features.

• *What You'll Bring**
• --------------------

### **The Toolkit:**

• Proven experience leading and managing software engineering teams responsible for infrastructure and reliability in a fast\-paced, high\-growth environment, with a track record of staying technically hands\-on rather than purely delegating.
• Deep, current expertise in designing, deploying, and operating highly available distributed systems on cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) \- this role needs someone who can still open a terminal and debug production, not just review architecture diagrams.
• Extensive hands\-on experience with Kubernetes (k8s) and container orchestration in production environments.
• Proficiency in Golang or similar modern programming languages for infrastructure automation and service development.
• Strong understanding of observability principles and experience with tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, or similar.
• Demonstrated ability to manage critical incidents personally when needed, perform root cause analysis, and implement effective preventative measures.
• Familiarity with API gateway technologies, service mesh, or network proxies is a significant plus.

### **The Kong DNA:**

• **Ownership:** You take full responsibility for the reliability and performance of systems, driving initiatives from conception to completion.
• **Urgency:** You thrive in dynamic environments, prioritizing critical issues and delivering impactful solutions with speed and precision.
• **Collaboration:** You build strong relationships, foster open communication, and work effectively across global teams to achieve shared goals.

• *Bonus Points**
• ---------------

• Experience with open\-source contributions or active participation in SRE/cloud\-native communities.
• Certifications in cloud platforms (e.g., AWS Certified DevOps Engineer) or Kubernetes (e.g., CKA, CKAD).
• Background in companies focused on developer tools, infrastructure software, or API management.

• *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.