Site Reliability Engineer 2

Summary

Kong is building a connectivity layer for AI through its unified API and AI platform. The Site Reliability Engineer 2 will build, operate, and scale Kong’s multi-region SaaS platform across major cloud providers, with a focus on Kubernetes infrastructure, automation, reliability, observability, security, and deployment pipelines.

Responsibilities

• Operate and scale Kong’s global SaaS platform (Konnect), ensuring reliability, availability, and performance across regions and clouds
• Build, automate, and maintain Kubernetes-based infrastructure and deployment workflows using Terraform/Terragrunt, Helm, and ArgoCD
• Design, maintain, and optimize multi-region data and caching layers — including PostgreSQL, Redis, ClickHouse, and Druid — for high availability and low latency
• Operate and improve Kong Gateway and Kong Mesh environments supporting hybrid and distributed architectures
• Develop and maintain CI/CD pipelines and GitOps workflows to automate service delivery and ensure consistent infrastructure changes
• Enhance observability and incident response readiness through systems like Datadog, Prometheus, Grafana, and Thanos, defining and tracking SLOs
• Collaborate closely with development and security teams to ensure smooth operation of SaaS services in compliance with reliability, security, and regulatory standards
• Participate in a global 24/7 on-call rotation and drive continuous improvement of operational playbooks and postmortem practices
• Lead and contribute to scaling initiatives that improve elasticity, reliability, and cost-efficiency across the SaaS platform

Skills

• BS in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience
• Proven experience managing SaaS or PaaS systems at enterprise scale (multi-region, multi-tenant, secure environments)
• Deep expertise in Kubernetes, including debugging cluster/networking issues and designing for fault tolerance and scalability
• Strong proficiency with Infrastructure as Code tools like Terraform or Terragrunt
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and GitOps workflows (ArgoCD, Atlantis, Helm)
• Proficiency in one or more programming languages (Go, Python, Bash) for automation and tooling
• Solid understanding of Linux/Unix systems, networking (DNS, TLS/SSL, HTTP), load balancers and distributed systems
• Experiencing working with API gateway and service mesh technologies
• Familiarity with streaming systems like Kafka and observability platforms (Datadog, Prometheus, Grafana)
• Experience working in a 24/7/365 production support environment
• Hands-on experience with Kong Gateway, Kong Mesh, or similar service connectivity technologies
• Experience operating ClickHouse, Druid, or other time-series and analytics databases
• Experience managing PostgreSQL and Redis in multi-region configurations
• Working knowledge of AWS networking (PrivateLink, Transit Gateway, VPC Peering, Firewalls), Azure VNet, or GCP NCC
• Strong understanding of disaster recovery, resiliency testing, and compliance-driven reliability practices

Qualifications

Must Haves

• BS in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience
• Proven experience managing SaaS or PaaS systems at enterprise scale (multi-region, multi-tenant, secure environments)
• Deep expertise in Kubernetes, including debugging cluster/networking issues and designing for fault tolerance and scalability
• Strong proficiency with Infrastructure as Code tools like Terraform or Terragrunt
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and GitOps workflows (ArgoCD, Atlantis, Helm)
• Proficiency in one or more programming languages (Go, Python, Bash) for automation and tooling
• Solid understanding of Linux/Unix systems, networking (DNS, TLS/SSL, HTTP), load balancers and distributed systems
• Experiencing working with API gateway and service mesh technologies
• Familiarity with streaming systems like Kafka and observability platforms (Datadog, Prometheus, Grafana)
• Experience working in a 24/7/365 production support environment

Nice to Haves

• Hands-on experience with Kong Gateway, Kong Mesh, or similar service connectivity technologies
• Experience operating ClickHouse, Druid, or other time-series and analytics databases
• Experience managing PostgreSQL and Redis in multi-region configurations
• Working knowledge of AWS networking (PrivateLink, Transit Gateway, VPC Peering, Firewalls), Azure VNet, or GCP NCC
• Strong understanding of disaster recovery, resiliency testing, and compliance-driven reliability practices