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.
About the role:
You will be working at a dynamic, fast paced, and sometimes hectic startup as a member of our post-sale Customer Experience (CX) team which is responsible for supporting and guiding our customers throughout their technical journey with Kong, ensuring they receive the utmost value from their investment in our products. As a CX Architect, you’ll serve as a technical champion and trusted advisor for many of our enterprise customers, working to understand their API strategy, helping design their solution architecture, and consulting their teams on anything from implementation to defining roadmaps for the future. You’ll be helping our customers craft and execute technical strategies that will drive the adoption and use of our API Management & Connectivity solutions and ensure the long-term operational health of their environments. The world-class support our CX Architects provide is instrumental in driving customer loyalty and retention, aiding to the continued growth and success of Kong.
You will function as the primary point of contact for all technical, product and support questions on a day-to-day basis and will coordinate with & leverage the various Kong teams to ensure your customers’ success. Your technical acumen and customer-facing skills will enable you to effectively represent Kong within a customer’s environment. The close relationships developed with your customers will allow you to understand their business/operational/technical needs & challenges and help them achieve the greatest value from Kong. This role will give you an opportunity to help enterprises accelerate their digital transformation initiatives.
What’s in it for you? This is an opportunity to work on cutting edge, innovative customer projects involving new and exciting technologies with diverse people all over the world. The knowledge you gain on our products and customer use cases will be applied to real world usage and contribute to the continued innovation and enhancement of our technology by our Product Engineers. As a valuable member of the Kong delivery team, the work you do will be critical to our growth and success. You’ll be given thought leadership to help define what ‘good’ looks like in terms of production deployments, what is recommended, and why.
In this role, you will interface and collaborate with a variety of peers and partners as well as everyone in the customer environment from Developers to Executives, representing Kong culture and values every day. This is one of the most technically challenging roles in the industry and working at Kong presents a unique opportunity to combine that challenge with the chance to help modernize enterprise software and learn about how businesses run in the digital age.
Why should you want to work at Kong?
Market Opportunity - We are on a quest to build a $10b+ software company over the next few years and need YOUR help!
Technical Leadership - We are recognized as the leader in innovation in the connectivity space.
Amazing Team & Culture - Come be a "Konger" and find out what we mean.
Building Great Products - Learn why the world’s largest companies love our tech!
· Over 250m+ downloads of our open-source API gateway!
What you’ll be doing:
- Ensure constant communication with customers and emerge as customer’s trusted technical advisor and a partner
- Establish business value for customers and help them achieve the targets and ROI
- Drive customer’s renewal and expansion - to that effect, explore new use cases and expand Kong’s API platform usage
- Understand, advocate and document customer’s use case, architecture and roadmap
- Effectively manage the tracking and resolution of customer escalations on behalf of product and services
- Champion and advocate for the customer within Kong
- Articulate and follow up with Engineering and Product Management on customers’ product features and future roadmap needs and address them actively
- Manage customer accounts with Kong’s customer maturity model framework
- Periodic review of Kong implementation and walk through best practices
- And any additional tasks required by manager
What you’ll bring for success:
- 5+ years of relevant experience within Customer Experience Architecture, Technical Support and/or Professional Services functions in a Software/SaaS company
- Hands-on experience implementing/ installing API Management Platform(s) or API Application Integration experience
- Infrastructure build experience with virtual machines or Containers using Kubernetes
- Cloud provider knowledge in at least one - AWS, Azure, or GCP
- Knowledge of DevOps, Security fundamentals, & Networking fundamentals
- A strong desire to tackle hard technical problems and proven ability do so with little or no direct daily supervision
- Excellent communication skills and an ability to concisely explain complex technical issues and solutions
- Ability to travel up to 25% of the time to meet with your accounts
- Bonus points:
- Software development experience in one or more programming languages such as Java, Python, or Lua
- Prior experience working for a technology startup
Kong has different base pay ranges for different work locations within the United States, which allows us to pay employees competitively and consistently in different geographic markets. Compensation varies depending on a wide array of factors, including but not limited to specific candidate location, role, skill set and level of experience. Certain roles are eligible for additional rewards including sales incentives depending on the terms of the applicable plan and role. Benefits may vary depending on location. US based employees are typically offered access to healthcare benefits, a 401(k) plan, short and long term disability benefits, basic life and AD&D insurance, among others. The typical base pay range for this role in the US is $107,000 - 160,000.
What is a Konger?
We are a group of makers, thinkers, and doers focused on helping today’s developers build tomorrow’s technology. Our teams work on the bleeding edge of API innovation to provide our users with a central nervous system for data and services.
We put design at the heart of everything we do, and we’re relentlessly focused on creating beautiful experiences for our customers. That’s why technology companies, major banks, e-commerce innovators, and government agencies put Kong in front of their most important web applications.
We believe in the power of Open Source and everything it stands for. That’s why developers around the world enthusiastically contribute on top of our open-source platform.
We are passionate about solving challenges that will fundamentally shape the future of technology, and we’re looking for the right people to join us on our mission. If you believe in taking ownership of your work, making an impact, and having fun along the way, we would love to talk to you.
Kong Core Values:
Be Inclusive. We work together from anywhere to achieve our common goals. Our differences make us stronger.
Be Authentic. We are genuine, principled, and confident without arrogance. Show respect and kindness, especially in tough moments.
Be Relentlessly Resourceful. We work with purpose, obsession, and grit. It takes muscle to do hard things and doing hard things build muscle.
Be Customer Obsessed. We care. Customers are everything, we put them at the center of everything you do. We are all empowered to make an impact.
Be Curious. We value ideas over hierarchy. Never accept the status quo. We make bold bets, fail, and learn every day. There is always a way.
Be an Owner. We are drivers not passengers and own the quality and outcomes of our work.
About Kong:
Kong is THE cloud native API platform with the fastest, most adopted API gateway in the world (over 300m downloads!). Loved by developers and trusted with enterprises’ most critical traffic volumes, Kong helps startups and Fortune 500 companies build with confidence – allowing them to bring solutions to market faster with API and service connectivity that scales easily and securely.
83% of web traffic today is API calls! APIs are the connective tissue of the cloud and the underlying technology that allows software to talk and interact with one another. Therefore, we believe that APIs act as the nervous system of the cloud. Our audacious mission is to build the nervous system that will safely and reliably connect all of humankind!
For more information about Kong, please visit
konghq.com or follow @thekonginc on Twitter.
We are an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.
