Ph3Senior Software Engineer, AI Gateway - Milan /h3 pAre 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. /p h3About the Role /h3 pYou will join the engineering team that builds the Kong AI gateway, empowering companies and developers around the world to govern every step of their AI LLM based innovation. As a Senior Software Engineer in the AI Gateway Team, you will be working on core features such as multi-LLM routing and balancing, semantic caching and routing, MCP, and more. /p h3What You’ll Be Doing /h3 ul liResponsible for designing, building and maintaining API management software for AI and LLMs and its underlying stack. /li liArchitecture, design, and implement new innovative features including proxying capabilities, load balancing, database support that extend Kong AI Gateway’s offering. /li liBugs troubleshooting, performance tuning and low-level optimizations. /li liFill the gaps between Kong and third‑party deployment platforms and tooling. /li liMentor junior members of the team. /li liAny additional tasks required by the manager. /li /ul h3What You’ll Bring /h3 ul li5+ years of programming in server‑side applications and components. /li liExperience designing, prototyping, building and debugging applications that are highly scalable, distributed, reliable and resilient. /li liSolid hands‑on low‑level technical expertise in Linux systems troubleshooting, and profiling. /li liExperience in distributed systems, Linux networking stack and computer systems programming. /li liComfortable working with a remotely distributed team. /li liStrong sense of ownership and excellent verbal and written communication skills. /li liFamiliarity with AI LLM concepts and applications development. /li liHands on experience with Rust. /li /ul h3Bonus Points /h3 ul liHands on experience with NGINX/OpenResty/Kong/LuaJIT. /li liHands on experience with Envoy or Istio. /li /ul h3About Kong /h3 pKong Inc., a leading developer of cloud API technologies, is on a mission to enable companies around the world to become “API‑first” and securely accelerate AI adoption. Kong helps organizations globally — from startups to Fortune 500 enterprises — unleash developer productivity, build securely, and accelerate time to market. For more information about Kong, please visit or follow us on X @thekonginc. /p h3Seniority level /h3 pMid‑Senior level /p h3Employment type /h3 pFull‑time /p h3Job function /h3 pEngineering and Information Technology /p /p #J-18808-Ljbffr