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:
At Kong, our API and AI Gateway sits at the center of how Fortune 500 enterprises and AI-native startups secure and govern the flow of intelligence.
Every request into a company's infrastructure goes through the Gateway first. Security isn't a side concern here, it's the top priority: you're guarding the front door.
You'll be securing AI traffic while the playbook is still being written: prompt injection, agentic authorization, MCP. These are problems nobody has fully solved yet.
We're looking for a Software Engineer with a security specialization to join our Runtimes team as a Security Champion: an engineer who writes real code and makes security a built-in part of how we ship.
What You'll Do:
- Run security-focused code audits, threat modeling, and secure design reviews across our AI Gateway and API Gateway capabilities
- Own vulnerability management end-to-end: triage, reproduction, remediation, verification
- Partner with AI Gateway engineering on emerging AI/LLM threat patterns (ie: prompt injection, data leakage, model abuse)
- Coach engineers on secure coding practices, turning security findings into lasting team habits
- Contribute hands-on to Gateway feature work, with security built-in from day one
What You'll Bring:
- 3+ years building production software, with 2+ years in a dedicated security role (AppSec, vulnerability research, or pentesting);
- Solid coding skills in a object oriented language (Rust, Java, Python, Go, or similar);
- Practical threat-modeling experience;
- Working knowledge of cybersecurity (especially L7 security and authentication);
- Basic knowledge of AI attack vectors.
Nice-to-have:
- Familiarity with L7 proxies/API gateway architecture (Nginx, OpenResty, Envoy, HAProxy or Kong);
- Experience with Lua;
- Open-source contributions;
- Willingness to learn Rust is important for where our platform is heading: we'll help you get there.
What we offer:
- A permanent contract under the CCNL Commercio (Quadro)
- Bonus and welfare system
- Hybrid work from our Milan Hub at Talent Garden Isola, and a seat at the table where security decisions actually shape what millions of API calls run through every day.
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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 http://www.konghq.com.