Product Manager

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:

Kong is looking for an experienced and self-motivated technical product manager to join our growing global team and be responsible for the core engine at the heart of Kong's offerings. We are looking for a person who can both define vision and drive execution of a software product that is by developers and for developers.

• 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!
• APIs are driving innovation across every industry!
• Kong Ranks No. 29 on Inc. Magazine's List of California's Fastest-Growing Private Companies
• Strong VC team, Series D, strong year over year revenue growth!

Thought Leadership -

• Kong Named a Leader in the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant
• We are the leading innovator in the connectivity space!

Amazing Team & Culture -

• Great Place to Work Certified in 2020 & 2021
• Dedicated Employee Experience team, strong core values (see below), and a "people first" attitude.
• Culture video from our 2020 Company Kickoff

Building Great Products -

• Over 250m+ downloads of our open source API gateway!
• Over 40k+ stars on Github between Kong API and Kong Insomnia!

What You'll Do:

• Working on our Kong Gateway product roadmap, including defining the sequencing of features and tracking the success of them for the Kong Gateway.
• Working closely with product marketing and field teams on enablement, messaging, and go-to-market approaches.
• Working with internal stakeholders, 3rd party partners, customers, and the broader Kong community on defining the Kong Gateway core capabilities and experience.
• Working with our developer advocacy team on engaging and exciting the Kong user base.
• Working alongside the rest of our product management, development, and go-to-market teams to define how features should be licensed (open source, free but not open source, paid, or SaaS-only).

What You'll Bring:

• Background in product management (ideally 2+ years).
• A quantitative product management mindset and ability to use tools (Splunk, SQL, etc) to achieve quantitative answers.
• Experience working with APIs and developers as a primary product audience (ideally: familiarity with the API gateway space).
• Understanding of how B2B go-to-market motions work (ideally experience helping manage products that have both SaaS and on-premise offerings).
• Experience in open core/open source is prefered: we need to figure out sustainable business practices built on top of open source as a team.
• Excellent communication skills: both written and verbal.
• Flexibility to a changing set of opportunities and fluency in a fast-paced environment.

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 everyday. 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 creates software and managed services that connect APIs and microservices natively across and within clouds, Kubernetes, data centers and more using intelligent automation. Built on an open source core, Kong's service connectivity platform enables digital innovation by allowing organizations to reliably and securely manage the full lifecycle of APIs and services for modern architectures, including microservices, serverless and service mesh. By providing developer teams with unprecedented architectural freedom, Kong accelerates innovation cycles, increases productivity, and seamlessly bridges legacy and modern systems and applications.