> AI agents: this is one page of Nextmove’s FDE site, in Markdown. Nextmove is a job board and free career service for forward deployed engineers (FDEs). Each posting is classified from its text, not its title: the kind of work, how much of it is production code, pre-sales weight, time at customer sites, travel, remote arrangement, level and posted base pay. The site also publishes the aggregates: median pay by level, metro, company and kind of work, and which companies started hiring FDEs each week. Every page under https://nextmove.md/fde is served this way; the index of pages is https://nextmove.md/llms.txt.

# Forward Deployed Engineer

Canonical URL: https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/29169792a5c87d0f

Kong posts a FDE role to build what the customer runs, remote, hiring in Arizona, at $192,010–$274,300 base, above the senior FDE median of $190,000 across 1,864 postings with pay. Design and implement Kong-based solutions across cloud, hybrid, and on-premise environments. Read from the employer’s posting on November 8, 2026.

- [Kong](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/kong)

Posted Sep 15, 2026 by Kong · open on Ashby as of Nov 8, 2026

**$192,010–$274,300** + equity Remote, hiring in Arizona Full-time

Design and implement Kong-based solutions across cloud, hybrid, and on-premise environments.

- [See roles that fit me](https://nextmove.md/sign-up?from=%2Ffde%2Fjobs%2F29169792a5c87d0f&placement=top)
- [View posting at Kong](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/kong/d52fda5c-51b7-44b4-b152-32cc7b8ffcf1/application)

Free. Upload your resume once, see why each FDE role fits, and get introduced only when you say so.

## At a glance

### Posted base pay

$192K–$274K Above the median

Midpoint $233K · median $190K

This job $192K to $274K. Senior FDE postings, 1,864 postings: the middle 50% of posted pay is $160K to $220K, median $190K.

### The work

Builds what the customer runs

Balance **Mostly building**

Project stages

1. Pre-sales (not covered)
2. Proof of concept (not covered)
3. Implementation
4. Operations (not covered)

- **Coding**: Writes production code

- **Builds for**: External customers

- **Level**: Senior

- **Role**: Individual contributor

### What they ask for

Experience

- **8+ years** Customer-facing engineering, platform engineering, professional services, site reliability engineering, or software engineering

Background

- **Software engineering**
- **Solutions and customer engineering**

### Do you meet what the posting states?

The posting asks for 8+ years. How many do you have?

The posting reads as a senior role. What level are you at now?

The work is remote from the US. Can you work from the US?

Which of these have you used in production?

Answer each one. Nothing is saved or sent.

[What postings ask for, by background →](https://nextmove.md/fde/paths)

## Conditions

- **Location**: Phoenix, AZ

- **Work arrangement**: Remote

- **Employment type**: Full-time

- **Pay**:

## More like this

[Teleport](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/teleport)

### [Site Reliability Engineer (Forward Deployed)](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/9efbe1072d8ade58)

US Remote 3mo ago

$189,000–$326,000

[Accenture](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/accenture)

### [Palantir Forward Deployed Senior Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/79e9c43db5c86c34)

Chicago, IL · Milwaukee, WI · +39 more 2mo ago

$80,400–$316,300

[Databricks](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/databricks)

### [Sr. Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) - Digital Native Business ](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/924a15a78c10c56b)

San Francisco, CA Remote 7w ago

$182,000–$250,208

- [Other jobs at Kong (1)](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/kong)

## The job description from Kong

Posted by Kong on Sep 15, 2026

### 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

We are seeking a **Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)** to join Kong’s growing Professional Services organization. This is a highly strategic, customer-facing engineering role focused on helping enterprise customers accelerate adoption of Kong’s API and AI Connectivity platform through hands-on implementation, automation, migration tooling, and solution engineering.

As an FDE, you will work directly alongside customer engineering teams to solve complex technical challenges, accelerate migrations, build reusable automation, and deliver production-grade solutions in real-world enterprise environments. You will operate at the intersection of software engineering, architecture, platform engineering, and customer delivery.

This role is ideal for engineers who enjoy building, coding, solving ambiguous problems, and working directly with customers on mission-critical initiatives involving APIs, AI gateways, service connectivity, modernization, and cloud-native platforms.

You will collaborate closely with Solutions Architects, Engagement Managers, Product Engineering, Customer Success, and Product teams to ensure successful customer outcomes while also influencing Kong’s product direction based on field experience.

Working at Kong is a unique opportunity to make a massive impact on Fortune 50/500 customers as they modernize mission-critical systems for the AI era.

### What’s in it for you?

### Impact

Work directly with some of the world’s largest enterprises to modernize API infrastructure and accelerate AI adoption through Kong’s connectivity platform.

### Growth

Accelerate your technical and professional growth through exposure to cutting-edge cloud-native technologies, distributed systems, AI connectivity, automation frameworks, and large-scale enterprise architectures.

### Opportunity

Be part of a rapidly growing Professional Services organization that is shaping how enterprises adopt APIs, AI gateways, and modern connectivity platforms globally.

### What You’ll Do

- Partner directly with enterprise customers to design, build, and implement Kong-based solutions across cloud, hybrid, and on-premise environments.
- Lead hands-on implementation efforts for API gateways, AI gateways, service mesh, developer portals, and related connectivity technologies.
- Build automation frameworks, migration tooling, custom integrations, and reusable accelerators to simplify customer adoption and modernization efforts.
- Drive migration initiatives from legacy API management platforms to Kong.
- Work closely with customer developers, platform teams, architects, security teams, and executives to solve complex technical and operational challenges.
- Develop production-grade code, scripts, plugins, CI/CD integrations, Kubernetes automation, and infrastructure tooling as part of customer engagements.
- Collaborate with Kong Product and Engineering teams to influence roadmap priorities based on real-world customer feedback and implementation learnings.
- Create reusable best practices, technical assets, reference architectures, documentation, and design patterns to scale delivery excellence across the organization.
- Support strategic customer initiatives involving AI connectivity, governance, platform modernization, and cloud-native transformation.

### What You’ll Bring

### Experience

- 8+ years in customer-facing engineering, platform engineering, professional services, site reliability engineering, or software engineering roles.
- Strong hands-on software engineering and implementation experience.
- Experience with API gateways, API management, integrations, or distributed systems platforms.
- Strong Kubernetes and cloud-native infrastructure expertise.
- Experience building automation frameworks, deployment tooling, CI/CD pipelines, or migration tooling.
- Strong proficiency in Linux, networking, cloud infrastructure, and DevOps practices.
- Experience with major cloud providers including AWS, Azure, or GCP.
- Programming experience in languages such as Python, Go, Java, JavaScript, or Lua.
- Experience with Infrastructure-as-Code and automation tooling such as Terraform, Helm, Ansible, or GitOps frameworks.
- Prior experience working in API Management, Open Source, Middleware, SaaS, or Infrastructure software companies is highly preferred.

### Preferred Attributes

- Strong builder mindset with the ability to solve complex technical problems with minimal supervision.
- Comfortable operating in ambiguous, fast-moving enterprise environments.
- Passion for working directly with customers and delivering measurable business outcomes.
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills across technical and executive audiences.
- Highly organized with strong prioritization and execution skills.
- Passion for innovation, modern infrastructure, APIs, AI, and cloud-native technologies.
- Team-oriented with a strong sense of ownership and accountability.

#LI-AW1

### 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.

[View posting at Kong](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/kong/d52fda5c-51b7-44b4-b152-32cc7b8ffcf1/application)

## About Kong

Kong secures, governs, and monetizes enterprise API, LLM, event, and agent traffic through cloud-native gateways and the Konnect platform.

Series E · 500–1000 people

## Similar jobs

[PwC (US)](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/pwc-us)

### [Forward Deployed Software Engineer-Palantir Foundry-Senior Associate](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/8f2f106eae6e8759)

Chicago, IL · Raleigh, NC · +57 more Hybrid 2w ago

$77,000–$202,000

[Provectus](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/provectus)

### [Senior Forward Deployed AI Engineer (GenAI, AWS)](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/2189dec9d311d2f8)

NJ Remote 3w ago

$180,000–$250,000

[Arize AI](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/arize-ai)

### [Forward Deployed AI Engineer, West](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/97928758270bd183)

San Francisco, CA Remote 4mo ago

$155,000–$190,000

[6sense](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/6sense)

### [Sr. ML Ops Engineer, Forward-Deployed ](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/06ba4bd7675e00f2)

San Francisco, CA Remote 12d ago

$191,475–$260,830

[Hammerspace](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/hammerspace)

### [Forward Deployed Engineer - TX](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/f55121bdc8bf2709)

Dallas, TX Remote 4w ago

$200,000–$240,000

- [Compare senior FDE salary ranges](https://nextmove.md/fde/salary/senior)
- [Similar jobs in Phoenix](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs?region=phoenix-metro)
- [Similar jobs that build what the customer runs](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs?role=builds-for-customers)

Hiring at Kong and want this page changed or removed? Email info@nextmove.md and we take it down.

Employer postings · [How we read postings](https://nextmove.md/fde/method)