Senior Software Engineer, AI Gateway - Shanghai

Are you ready to power the World's connections?
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:
Kong is an open-source project with a global adoption around the world. Developers and architects are adopting Kong in production among a large variety of use-cases, and actively help make Kong a better product with their feedback and contributions.
As a Systems Engineer in the Core Team, you will be working on core features such as proxying capabilities, load balancing, and database support with forward-thinking. You will be responsible for building foundations for other teams and customers, discovering and producing cutting edge industry trends and use-cases.
Why should you want to work at Kong?  
Market Opportunity - We are on a quest to build a $10b+ software company over the next few years and need YOUR help!Why APIs Matter? APIs have been enabling innovation for decades!Strong VC team, Series D, strong year over year revenue growth!Technical Leadership - We are recognized as the leader in innovation in the connectivity space.Marco, our CTO/co-founder - “We are the Cisco of L4 and L7” - CUBE Conversation, March 2021We are the leading innovator in the connectivity space!Amazing Team & Culture - Come be a "Konger" and find out what we mean.Great Place to Work Certified in 2020 & 2021Kong employees exemplify our culture at our 2022 Sales KickoffBuilding Great Products - Learn why the world's largest companies love our tech!Kong Named a Leader in the 2021 Gartner Magic QuadrantOver 250m+ downloads of our open source API gateway!  Over 40k+ stars on Github between Kong API and Kong Insomnia!

What you'll be doing:

• Responsible for designing, building and maintaining API management software and its underlying stack.
• Architecture, design, and implement new innovative features including proxying capabilities, load balancing, databases support that extend Kong’s offering.
• Bugs troubleshooting, performance tuning and low-level optimizations. Engage with open source community and extend Kong core to support the latest industry trends.
• Fill the gaps between Kong and third-party deployment platforms and tooling.
• And any additional tasks required by manager.

What you'll bring:

• 7+ years of programming in server-side applications and components.
• Experience designing, prototyping, building and debugging applications that are highly scalable, distributed, reliable and resilient.
• Solid hands-on low-level technical expertise in Linux systems troubleshooting, and profiling.
• Experience in distributed systems, Linux networking stack and computer systems programming, Kong works with APIs on both L7 and L4 transports and protocols, so this expertise and knowledge are required.
• Comfortable working with a remotely distributed team.
• Strong sense of ownership and excellent verbal and written communication skills -- engineers at Kong write the documentation for their products.
• Familiarity with AI LLM concepts and application development.

Bonus Points:

• Hands-on experience with NGINX/OpenResty/Kong/LuaJIT.
• Hands-on experience with Envoy or Istio.
• Hands-on experience with Rust.

What is a Konger? 
We are a group of makers, thinkers, and doers focused on helping today’s developers build tomorrow’s technology. Our teams work on the bleeding edge of API innovation to provide our users with a central nervous system for data and services. 
We put design at the heart of everything we do, and we’re relentlessly focused on creating beautiful experiences for our customers. That’s why technology companies, major banks, e-commerce innovators, and government agencies put Kong in front of their most important web applications. 
We believe in the power of Open Source and everything it stands for. That’s why developers around the world enthusiastically contribute on top of our open-source platform. 
We are passionate about solving challenges that will fundamentally shape the future of technology, and we’re looking for the right people to join us on our mission. If you believe in taking ownership of your work, making an impact, and having fun along the way, we would love to talk to you.
Kong Core Values: 
Be Inclusive. We work together from anywhere to achieve our common goals. Our differences make us stronger. 
Be Authentic. We are genuine, principled and confident without arrogance. Show respect and kindness, especially in tough moments. 
Be Relentlessly Resourceful. We work with purpose, obsession and grit. It takes muscle to do hard things and doing hard things build muscle. 
Be Customer Obsessed. We care. Customers are everything, we put them at the center of everything you do. We are all empowered to make an impact. 
Be Curious. We value ideas over hierarchy. Never accept the status quo. We make bold bets, fail, and learn everyday. There is always a way. 
Be an Owner. We are drivers not passengers and own the quality and outcomes of our work.
About Kong: 
Kong is THE cloud native API platform with the fastest, most adopted API gateway in the world (over 300m downloads!). Loved by developers and trusted with enterprises’ most critical traffic volumes, Kong helps startups and Fortune 500 companies build with confidence – allowing them to bring solutions to market faster with API and service connectivity that scales easily and securely. 
83% of web traffic today is API calls!  APIs are the connective tissue of the cloud and the underlying technology that allows software to talk and interact with one another.  Therefore, we believe that APIs act as the nervous system of the cloud.  Our audacious mission is to build the nervous system that will safely and reliably connect all of humankind!  
For more information about Kong, please visit konghq.com or follow @thekonginc on Twitter.