Staff Product Manager, AI Management

Kong is building the future of AI connectivity, helping developers connect, secure, govern, and scale AI applications with speed and intelligence. In this Staff Product Manager role, you will set the direction and roadmap for Kong’s AI Management modules, including the AI Gateway, to support agentic AI applications with enterprise runtime governance and strong developer platform foundations.

You will translate complex technical challenges into clear product outcomes, connecting technical innovation to how teams manage context, policies, guardrails, routing, and evaluation across real deployments.

What you will own

• Architect and execute the product vision and roadmap for AI Management modules, delivering core capabilities across agentic harnesses, LLM routing, policies, context, guardrails, and evaluation.
• Lead cross-departmental strategy across engineering, design, product marketing, and executive leadership to align shared roadmaps without operational friction.
• Own the full lifecycle of your product modules by writing precise specifications, prioritizing backlogs, and balancing new feature delivery against technical debt and platform dependencies.
• Drive cross-product integration between AI Management and Kong’s core platform infrastructure, enabling seamless data plane and control plane integration.
• Accelerate high-velocity delivery cycles in close partnership with engineering leads by scoping work, navigating trade-offs, and improving time to market.
• Support regional field activities, customer-facing technical engagements, and sales enablement to validate product-market fit and ensure developer delight.

What you bring

• 7-10 years of technical product management experience shipping technical products in developer tools, API platforms, or AI infrastructure.
• Ability to convert complex technical challenges, including Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, request routing, data plane architectures, and transport trade-offs, into actionable product requirements.
• Proven track record driving execution and managing dependencies across globally distributed R&D teams.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills to articulate technical strategy across functions and seniority levels.
• Project management instincts to surface blockers early, track execution, and keep cross-functional roadmaps on schedule.

Relevant technologies

• Model Context Protocol (MCP)
• LLM routing
• Kubernetes
• Cloud-native architectures
• Control planes
• Data planes

Bonus points

• Direct experience with agentic AI development, including AI agents, AI gateways, LLM routing, AI observability, prompt management, guardrails, MCP servers, and A2A communications.
• Familiarity with enterprise platform engineering across Kubernetes, cloud-native architectures, control planes, and data planes.

Location: San Francisco, CA (onsite). Compensation: USD 175,000 - 210,000 per year. Experience: Minimum 7 years.