Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)
Why it's interesting
Kong — the API gateway company every backend engineer has run into — now runs a full FDE ladder (Forward Deployed Engineer through Senior Staff), embedding with enterprise customers on "API and AI connectivity platform" migrations. 8+ years required across the ladder; this is infra-company FDE, not agent-building FDE — Kubernetes, Terraform, and gateway migrations instead of prompts.
The role
Hands-on implementation of Kong's API and AI connectivity platform with enterprise customers: migration initiatives, automation development, and solution architecture across hybrid and on-premise environments. Wants 8+ years in customer-facing engineering, platform engineering, professional services, SRE, or software engineering; strong API gateway/Kubernetes/cloud-native/Linux/networking chops; Python, Go, Java, JavaScript, or Lua; AWS/Azure/GCP; Terraform/Helm/Ansible/GitOps. Background in API management, open-source, middleware, SaaS, or infrastructure software preferred.
Applications go directly to the company. We curate; we don't broker.