Staff Forward Deployed Engineer

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.

About the Role

Join the global leader in API and AI governance in the era of Artificial Intelligence! API traffic now outnumbers human traffic online, and a significant portion of that traffic is powered by the Kong platform, the world’s most popular API gateway.

As organizations modernize for AI-driven connectivity, Kong is uniquely positioned at the center of enterprise transformation. 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.

As an FDE, you will 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.

You will operate at the intersection of software engineering, architecture, platform engineering, and customer delivery.

This role is ideal for engineers who enjoy building, coding, solving ambiguous problems, and working directly with customers on mission-critical initiatives involving APIs, AI gateways, service connectivity, modernization, and cloud-native platforms.

You will collaborate closely with Solutions Architects, Engagement Managers, Product Engineering, Customer Success, and Product teams to ensure successful customer outcomes while also influencing Kong ’s product direction based on field experience.

Working at Kong is a unique opportunity to make a massive impact on Fortune 50/500 customer