Senior Engineering Manager - Test Function

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:

As the Senior Engineering Manager, you will serve as the global leader for Quality Engineering across Kong’s flagship runtime platforms (AI Gateway, API Gateway, Event Gateway and Mesh).

This is a high-visibility, transformative leadership role. Beyond overseeing our distributed global SDET organization, you will be the primary architect of Kong’s next-generation AI-driven testing strategy. You will spearhead the transformation of our quality engineering function from traditional automation to an intelligent, agentic, self-healing test substrate, using LLMs and automated prompt/agent loops to test the very infrastructure powering the AI era.

What You’ll Do:

Global Team Leadership & Operations: Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing, geographically distributed team of Software Development Engineers in Test (SDETs) across North America, Europe, and Asia.

Architect the AI Testing Strategy: Define and execute the roadmap for integrating AI, LLMs, and autonomous test agents directly into our testing lifecycle. Implement generative AI capabilities for automated test case generation, smart failure triage, self-healing test scripts, and dynamic edge-case synthesis.

Own Runtimes Quality St