Kong API Developer / API Gateway Engineer

3AM IT Solutions LLC

Hawthorne, United States of America

7 days ago

Role details

Contract type

Permanent contract

Employment type

Full-time (> 32 hours)

Working hours

Regular working hours

Languages

English

Compensation

$ 125K

Job location

Hawthorne, United States of America

Tech stack

Java

JavaScript

API

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Data analysis

Application Performance Management

Azure

Continuous Integration

DevOps

Github

Python

Lua

Nginx

OAuth

Open Source Technology

Role-Based Access Control

Openid Connect

Prometheus

Swagger

JSON Web Token

Openapi

Enterprise Software Applications

Load Balancing

Cloud Platform System

Postman

Istio

Grafana

Software Security

Caching

Backend

Gitlab-ci

Low Latency

Deployment Automation

Linkerd (Service Mesh)

GraphQL

Api Gateway

REST

Terraform

Splunk

Api Management

Docker

Jenkins

Microservices

Job description

We are seeking a highly skilled Kong API Developer to design, develop, and manage our API gateway infrastructure using Kong. This role is ideal for someone passionate about building secure, scalable, and high-performance APIs and enabling seamless integrations across enterprise applications. You will play a key role in API lifecycle management, security, traffic control, and observability in a modern microservices environment.

Responsibilities

Design, implement, and manage API Gateways using Kong (Open Source / Enterprise)
Develop and maintain RESTful and/or GraphQL APIs integrated with Kong
Implement authentication and authorization (OAuth 2.0, JWT, OpenID Connect, mTLS)
Configure rate limiting, throttling, caching, plugins, and load balancing
Work with microservices architectures and service mesh concepts
Integrate Kong with CI/CD pipelines and automate deployments
Monitor API performance, logs, and metrics using tools like Prometheus, Grafana, Splunk, or ELK
Collaborate with application, DevOps, and security teams to ensure API reliability and compliance
Troubleshoot API gateway, latency, and integration issues
Contribute to API documentation and best practices

Requirements

Strong experience with Kong API Gateway
Hands-on experience with REST APIs and API management platforms
Proficiency in Lua, JavaScript, Python, or Java (for plugins or backend services)
Experience with API security standards (OAuth 2.0, JWT, mTLS)
Knowledge of Docker and Kubernetes
Familiarity with NGINX and HTTP concepts
Experience working in cloud environments (AWS, Azure, or GCP)
Understanding of microservices architecture

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with Kong Enterprise features (Developer Portal, Analytics, Vitals, RBAC)
Familiarity with Terraform or Infrastructure as Code
API testing experience (Postman, Swagger / OpenAPI)
CI/CD tools such as Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI
Prior experience in high-availability or large-scale API environments

Nice to Have