Sr Engineer - DataPower & Kong Administrator

Job Description

Job Overview:

The Senior Engineer, Middleware API Infrastructure Engineer with expertise in IBM DataPower and Kong provides senior-level operational and architectural support for API gateway and messaging infrastructure. This role drives continuous improvement, automation, and governance for DataPower and Kong platforms.

Responsibilities:

• Install, configure, upgrade, and patch Kong Gateway (Enterprise) across Dev, Test, and Production environments.
• Manage Kong entities services, routes, consumers, plugins, upstreams, certificates, and workspaces — via the Admin API, decK, and Terraform.
• Design and enforce plugin policies: rate limiting, OAuth 2.0/OIDC/JWT authentication, mTLS, request/response transformation, logging, and correlation-ID injection.
• Maintain and tune Kong Ingress Controller (KIC) configurations on Kubernetes clusters.
• Oversee Kong Manager (GUI) and Kong Developer Portal — access control, API documentation publishing, and developer onboarding.
• Act as Level 2/3 on-call support for Kong-related production incidents (P1/P2).
• Investigate and resolve gateway-layer issues: 4xx/5xx error spikes, latency outliers, plugin misconfigurations, upstream connectivity failures, and TLS certificate expiry.
• Perform root cause analysis (RCA) and author post-incident reports with corrective actions.
• Triage support tickets from internal API consumers and coordinate with upstream service owners.
• Maintain and test runbooks for common failure scenarios.

What are we looking for?

We’re looking for strong collaborators who deliver exceptional client experiences and thrive in fast-paced, team-oriented environments. Our ideal candidates pursue greatness, act with integrity, and are driven to help our clients succeed. We value those who embrace creativity, continuous improvement, and contribute to a culture where we win together and create and share joy in our work.

Requirements:

• 8+ years of middleware experience with deep expertise in IBM DataPower and Kong
• Advanced proficiency in DataPower policy development, GatewayScript, and XSLT
• 5+ years of experience in a platform engineering, API gateway, or infrastructure SRE role.
• 3+ years of hands-on Kong Gateway administration (Enterprise preferred; OSS acceptable).
• Strong understanding of HTTP/S, REST, gRPC, WebSocket, and TLS/mTLS.
• Experience with decK (declarative Kong config) and the Kong Admin API.
• Proficiency in at least one scripting language: Python, Bash, or PowerShell.
• Experience with Kubernetes (EKS, GKE, or AKS) and Kong Ingress Controller.
• Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code tools: Terraform and/or Helm.
• Practical experience with observability tooling (Grafana, Prometheus, Splunk, or Datadog).
• Comfortable working in an on-call rotation with defined SLA/SLO commitments.

Preference:

• Experience with containerized DataPower (DataPower on Kubernetes/OpenShift)
• Knowledge of event-driven integration patterns and Kafka/MQ bridging
• Kong Certified Professional or equivalent certification.
• Experience with service mesh technologies (Istio, Linkerd) alongside Kong.
• Familiarity with API security standards: OAuth 2.0, OIDC, SAML, API keys, JWT.