Specialist Solutions Engineer (AI Focus)

Are 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. As a Staff Solutions Engineer – Specialist at Kong Inc., you will serve as a senior technical authority, combining deep expertise in AI, DevOps, AIOps, FinOps, security, and system integration to guide Kong’s enterprise customers and partners through complex architectural decisions. Operating as a trusted advisor, you will demonstrate the value of Kong's platform through precision-engineered solutions and hands-on technical leadership. RESPONSIBILITIES - Engage with executive leadership, as well as senior AI stakeholders in Kong’s prospects’ and customers’ organizations to help craft their AI journey with Kong technologies. - You will stay at the bleeding edge of AI developments, and work with Solution Engineers, and the product management organization to surface market feedback and influence product direction. - Assist with technical discovery sessions, architecture reviews, and executive-level presentations with clients, translating business requirements into concrete platform solutions. - Apply expertise in AI/ML technology and tooling — including agentic AI, AI orchestration frameworks, and agent-building — to guide customers on integrating AI capabilities into their API infrastructure. - Support proof-of-concept exercises and custom technical demonstrations that showcase Kong's capabilities. - Mentor junior Solutions Engineers and actively contribute to the team's shared technical knowledge base. - Manage multiple concurrent engagements with strong project discipline, delivering results against defined timelines and commitments. - Communicate complex technical concepts with clarity and precision to both engineering audiences and executive stakeholders. - Build and maintain demonstration tooling and environments. - Produce compelling collateral on AI topics including demos, webinars, documents, and white papers. QUALIFICATIONS - 10+ years of experience in solutions engineering, technical architecture, or a comparable customer-facing technical role. - Demonstrated expertise in API design and API management principles, patterns, and best practices. - Hands-on experience with AIOps platforms or tooling - Strong command of authentication and authorization standards, including OAuth 2.0, OIDC, and JWT, alongside applied knowledge of cybersecurity best practices. - Proficiency with Linux operating systems and containerization technologies (Docker, Kubernetes). - Fluency with Git-based workflows and collaborative software development practices. - Proven application of SRE principles and observability tooling (logging, metrics, tracing) in production environments. - Experience with infrastructure automation and scripting for deployment and configuration management. - Exceptional communication and presentation skills; able to adapt technical depth to the audience. - Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field — or equivalent demonstrated experience. About Kong: Kong Inc., a leading developer of API and AI connectivity technologies, is building the infrastructure that powers the agentic era. Trusted by the Fortune 500 and startups alike, Kong's unified API and AI platform, Kong Konnect, enables organizations to secure, manage, accelerate, govern, and monetize the flow of intelligence across APIs and AI models. For more information, visit www.konghq.com http://www.konghq.com.