About this role.
Kong is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to architect and build Kong Identity, a multi-tenant identity and access management platform within its Konnect product team. The role focuses on highly scalable authentication, token lifecycle management, OAuth/OIDC extensions, federation, client management, and enterprise-grade security controls. The engineer will lead technical strategy across global infrastructure, observability, developer tooling, compliance, and privacy-preserving identity capabilities. This is a senior technical leadership role requiring deep hands-on expertise in distributed systems, identity protocols, cryptography, and regulated enterprise environments.
Role DNA
A quick view of the complexity, pace, ownership and collaboration implied by the job description.
Job Complexity
5/5Pace & Pressure
5/5Autonomy Level
5/5Communication Load
5/5Salary analysis
Estimated compensation compared with the broader CA market for similar roles.
Core skills
Skills and capabilities most closely associated with this opportunity.
Sample interview questions
I would issue short-lived access tokens and one-time-use refresh tokens bound to a token family, client, tenant, and relevant device or proof-of-possession context. Each refresh request atomically rotates the token and records lineage; reuse of an older token triggers family revocation and security telemetry. A low-latency distributed revocation store, local cache with bounded TTL, and event-driven invalidation would support near-real-time enforcement across regions.
I would keep the common validation path local by using signed JWTs, regionally replicated public keys, and carefully bounded caches. Stateful requirements such as revocation, session risk, and dynamic policy checks need an explicit consistency model, with risk-based decisions about whether to fail closed or tolerate brief replication lag. I would measure p99 latency, key-propagation time, revocation convergence, availability, and security impact before selecting the design.
Isolation should be layered across the data model, authorization layer, encryption boundaries, APIs, caches, queues, and observability data. Every request must have an authenticated tenant context enforced centrally, with tenant-scoped identifiers and policy checks that cannot be bypassed by downstream services. I would also use automated negative testing, audit trails, and threat modeling to validate that cross-tenant access is impossible under failure and misuse scenarios.
I would provide a constrained plugin contract with explicit input/output schemas, least-privilege capabilities, execution limits, versioning, and tenant-level policy controls. Plugins should run in an isolated environment and be subject to signing, review, audit logging, and deterministic failure behavior. The core authorization server must retain control of credential validation, token signing, issuer rules, and security-critical claims.
I would translate control requirements into concrete architecture, operational, and evidence requirements early, rather than treating compliance as a final audit task. This includes immutable audit trails, data classification, retention and residency controls, access reviews, incident response integration, and documented change management. I would partner with security, legal, SRE, and product teams to prioritize gaps, define measurable controls, and continuously collect evidence through automation.
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:
Kong is building the future of API management for developers. We’re a fast-growing, well-funded company with happy customers and motivated employees. Insomnia, acquired in 2019, is a full-lifecycle API development platform that has quickly become an integral part of Kong’s product portfolio.
As a Staff Software Engineer on the Konnect team at Kong, you’ll architect Kong Identity’s multi-tenant identity platform supporting complex organizational hierarchies, cross-tenant isolation, and enterprise-grade security controls.
What You’ll Do:
Design and implement advanced token management systems, including refresh token rotation, proof-of-possession tokens, and custom token introspection with real-time revocation capabilities.
Lead development of Kong Identity’s extensible claims engine supporting dynamic attribute resolution, contextual claim injection, and complex business logic evaluation at token issuance.
Architect global identity infrastructure with edge optimization, intelligent token caching, and cross-region replication strategies for sub-millisecond authentication latency worldwide.
Design sophisticated rate limiting, anomaly detection, and fraud prevention systems to protect against credential stuffing, token abuse, and distributed attacks.
Build enterprise identity federation capabilities, including SAML bridge patterns, external IdP chaining, and custom protocol adapters for legacy system integration.
Lead technical strategy for Kong Identity’s developer experience, including SDKs, webhooks, audit logging, and real-time analytics dashboards for token lifecycle visibility.
Architect advanced client management systems supporting dynamic client registration, automated credential rotation, and programmatic policy enforcement.
Design Kong Identity’s plugin architecture enables custom grant flows, protocol extensions, and third-party integrations while maintaining security boundaries.
Drive implementation of compliance frameworks (SOC 2, FedRAMP, GDPR), including comprehensive audit trails, data residency controls, and privacy-preserving token designs.
Lead technical initiatives for Kong Identity’s integration with observability platforms, supporting distributed tracing, metrics collection, and security event correlation.
Mentor engineering teams on advanced identity concepts including zero-trust architectures, workload identity, and service mesh integration patterns.
What You’ll Bring:
7+ years of experience building production identity platforms at leading identity providers or enterprise software companies, with proven track record of handling millions of authentication requests daily.
Deep expertise in advanced OAuth 2.0 extensions (PKCE, mTLS, JWT bearer assertions, token exchange), OpenID Connect profiles, and emerging standards like OAuth 2.1 and GNAP.
Proven experience architecting multi-tenant identity platforms with complex isolation requirements, tenant-specific configurations, and enterprise feature sets.
Strong background in cryptographic protocols including advanced JWT patterns, key rotation strategies, Hardware Security Module (HSM) integration, and post-quantum cryptography considerations.
Experience building identity platforms with sophisticated analytics, real-time monitoring, and security event detection capabilities at enterprise scale.
Expertise in global identity infrastructure including edge deployment strategies, geo-distributed token validation, and cross-region data consistency patterns.
Deep understanding of enterprise identity integration patterns including SAML federation, LDAP/AD bridges, SCIM provisioning, and custom protocol adapters.
Proven track record building developer-first identity platforms including comprehensive SDKs, webhook systems, and extensible API designs.
Experience with identity platform security including threat modeling, penetration testing coordination, and implementation of advanced attack prevention mechanisms.
Strong background in compliance and regulatory requirements for identity systems including audit trail design, data residency controls, and privacy engineering.
Experience building identity platforms supporting complex organizational structures, delegated administration, and fine-grained permission models.
Expertise in high-performance system design including horizontal scaling strategies, caching architectures, and latency optimization for identity operations.
Knowledge of service mesh identity patterns, workload identity bootstrapping, and integration with container orchestration platforms.
Experience with identity protocol extensions, custom grant flows, and building extensible identity platforms that support diverse use cases.
Proven ability to lead technical initiatives in complex, regulated environments while balancing innovation with security and compliance requirements.
#LI-AW1
About Kong:
Kong Inc., the AI Connectivity Company, is building the connectivity layer of AI. Trusted by the Fortune 500® and AI-native startups alike, Kong’s unified API and AI platform enables organizations to secure, manage, accelerate, govern, and monetize the flow of intelligence across APIs and AI traffic — on any model, any cloud. For more information, visit www.konghq.com.
Upload your resume now
- To unlock remote work opportunities and be discovered by global employers.
This job listing has been manually reviewed by the Jobicy Trust & Safety Team for compliance with our posting guidelines, including verification of the company's legitimacy, accuracy of job details, clarity of remote work policy, and absence of misleading or fraudulent content.
