Forward Deployed Engineer
Kong Inc. · USA
About this role
## Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) ### About the Role Join Kong, a global leader in API and AI governance, as a **Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)** in our **Professional Services** organization. This is a 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. You’ll work directly with customer engineering teams to solve complex technical challenges, accelerate migrations, build reusable automation, and deliver production-grade solutions in real-world enterprise environments—at the intersection of software engineering, architecture, platform engineering, and customer delivery. ### What You’ll Do - Partner directly with enterprise customers to design, build, and implement Kong-based solutions across **cloud, hybrid, and on-premise** environments. - Lead hands-on implementation for **API gateways, AI gateways, service mesh, developer portals**, and related connectivity technologies. - Build automation frameworks, migration tooling, custom integrations, and reusable accelerators to simplify adoption and modernization. - Drive migrations from **legacy API management** platforms to Kong. - Collaborate with customer developers, platform teams, architects, security teams, and executives to solve complex technical and operational challenges. - Develop production-grade code, scripts, plugins, **CI/CD integrations**, **Kubernetes automation**, and infrastructure tooling. - Work with Kong Product and Engineering teams to influence roadmap priorities based on field feedback and implementation learnings. - Create reusable best practices, technical assets, reference architectures, documentation, and design patterns. - Support strategic initiatives involving **AI connectivity, governance, platform modernization, and cloud-native transformation**. ### What You’ll Bring - **8+ years** in customer-facing engineering, platform engineering, professional services, site reliability engineering, or software engineering. - 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. - Proficiency in **Linux, networking, cloud infrastructure, and DevOps** practices. - Experience with major cloud providers: **AWS, Azure, or GCP**. - Programming experience in **Python, Go, Java, JavaScript, or Lua**. - Experience with **Infrastructure-as-Code** and automation tooling such as **Terraform, Helm, Ansible, or GitOps**. - Prior experience in API Management, Open Source, Middleware, SaaS, or Infrastructure software is highly preferred. ### Preferred Attributes - Builder mindset; able to solve complex 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 across technical and executive audiences. - Highly organized with strong prioritization and execution. - Passion for innovation in modern infrastructure, APIs, AI, and cloud-native technologies. - Team-oriented with strong ownership and accountability. ### Additional N
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