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Kong is seeking a Staff Solutions Engineer to serve as a trusted technical advisor for enterprise customers adopting API and AI connectivity solutions. In this role, you'll support field sales through the entire customer journey—from discovery and proof-of-concept through production deployment—while helping enterprises architect secure, scalable API ecosystems in the agentic AI era.
Key responsibilities include conducting technical discovery conversations to map customer requirements to Kong's platform, owning POC validation and stakeholder alignment, and delivering demonstrations of Kong's API and AI governance capabilities including Model Context Protocol governance, semantic caching, prompt guardrails, and shadow AI detection. You'll run Technical Feasibility Workshops focused on API and AI architectures, own technical strategy for complex multi-stakeholder enterprise deals, and create technical documentation for DevOps and implementation teams.
Beyond customer-facing work, you'll mentor junior solutions engineers on technical skills and deal strategy, drive thought leadership through technical blogs and conference speaking (AWS re:Invent, Google Next, API & AI summits), and synthesize customer feedback to influence product direction.
You bring 7+ years of software engineering or solutions engineering experience at SaaS, open source, or enterprise software companies, with a proven track record owning complex enterprise deals. You have hands-on experience with Docker, Kubernetes, cloud-native platforms, REST/GraphQL APIs, CI/CD pipelines, and API security patterns (OAuth2, OIDC, mTLS). AI experience is essential: you're proficient with AI-assisted development tools (Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, OpenAI Codex) and have working knowledge of LLM architectures, model routing, rate limiting, semantic caching, and prompt governance. Familiarity with Model Context Protocol and agentic AI patterns is required. You're a strong communicator comfortable leading discussions with engineers, architects, and executives, with enthusiasm for fast-paced environments at the intersection of APIs and AI.
