--- title: Staff Product Manager, AI Management at Kong description: Kong is hiring for the Staff Product Manager, AI Management role in San Francisco, CA. See the full description and apply. type: job url: https://www.foundrole.com/jobs/staff-product-manager-ai-management-at-kong-01a12311-324b-7f85-81ea-46c8b7748552 date: 2026-10-10T00:22:47Z og_description: Join Kong as Staff Product Manager, AI Management in San Francisco, CA. Pays $175K–$210K per year. Full-time, on-site role. og_image: https://www.foundrole.com/og/vra0yg.png breadcrumbs: - label: Home url: https://www.foundrole.com/ - label: Search url: https://www.foundrole.com/jobs --- | | | |---|---| | **Company** | Kong | | **Location** | San Francisco, CA | | **Salary** | $175K/yr - $210K/yr | | **Type** | Full Time | | **Posted** | Oct 09, 2026 | ## Description **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. ## **The Mission** At Kong, we are building the future of AI connectivity, empowering developers to connect, secure, govern, and scale their AI applications with speed and intelligence. As a Staff Product Manager for AI Management, you will own the product direction for our fastest-growing agentic AI portfolio—including our flagship AI Gateway—serving as a critical strategic lever in the Agentic Era. You will bridge high-impact technical innovation with enterprise runtime governance, context management, and developer platform experience to turn APIs and AI connectivity into an organizational innovation factory. ## **What You’ll Do** - Architect and execute the product vision and roadmap for AI Management modules, driving core capabilities around agentic harnesses, LLM routing, policies, context, guardrails, and evaluation. - Lead cross-departmental strategy as a multiplier 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 specs, prioritizing backlogs, and balancing new feature delivery against technical debt and platform dependencies. - Drive cross-product work connecting AI Management to Kong’s core platform infrastructure, enabling seamless data plane and control plane integration. - Speed up the clock on high-velocity delivery cadences in close partnership with engineering leads to scope work, navigate trade-offs, and accelerate 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’ll Bring** - 7-10 years of technical product management experience owning and shipping technical products in developer tools, API platforms, or AI infrastructure. - Demonstrated ability to translate complex technical challenges—such as 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 multiple functions and seniority levels. - Deep project management instincts to track work, surface blockers early, and keep cross-functional roadmaps on schedule. ## **The Kong DNA** - Ownership: You act as a driver, not a passenger, holding yourself accountable for product outcomes, runtime performance, and customer success. - Urgency: You model speed and efficiency in everything you do, navigating the fast-paced pre-IPO landscape with grit and focus. - Collaboration: You lead like an API by working cross-functionally, breaking down silos, and building alignment across global teams. ## **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, Kubernetes, cloud-native architectures, control planes, and data planes. #LI-MP1 **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](http://www.konghq.com). ## Skills - Backlogs - Project Management - Control Plane - Product Management - Prompt Management - Agentic AI - Customer Success Management - Agile Velocity - AI Infrastructure - API Management - Performance Tuning - Cloud Architecture - Kubernetes - Collaboration - Cross Product - Agent2Agent Protocol (A2a) - Climbing Equipment - AI Agents - Kong API Gateway - Model Context Protocol (Mcp) - Large Language Models (Llm) - Data Plane - Leadership - Driving - Product Marketing - Platform Engineering - Product Roadmaps - AI Observability - Communication - Writing - Sales Enablement ## Related - [Management & Leadership jobs](https://www.foundrole.com/careers/management-and-leadership?utm_source=ai_markdown)- [Product Management jobs](https://www.foundrole.com/careers/management-and-leadership/product-management?utm_source=ai_markdown)- [Product Manager jobs](https://www.foundrole.com/careers/management-and-leadership/product-management/product-manager?utm_source=ai_markdown)- [Browse all companies](https://www.foundrole.com/companies?utm_source=ai_markdown) ## Explore this job market - [California](https://www.foundrole.com/locations/us/california?utm_source=ai_markdown) — 274288 jobs - [Software Products](https://www.foundrole.com/sectors/technology/software-products?utm_source=ai_markdown) — 117592 jobs - [San Francisco, CA](https://www.foundrole.com/locations/us/california/san-francisco?utm_source=ai_markdown) — 26912 jobs ## Related pages - [California](https://www.foundrole.com/locations/us/california?utm_source=ai_markdown) — 274288 jobs - [Software Products](https://www.foundrole.com/sectors/technology/software-products?utm_source=ai_markdown) — 117592 jobs - [San Francisco, CA](https://www.foundrole.com/locations/us/california/san-francisco?utm_source=ai_markdown) — 26912 jobs ## Browse - [Companies](https://www.foundrole.com/companies?utm_source=ai_markdown) - [Jobs by country](https://www.foundrole.com/locations?utm_source=ai_markdown) - [Jobs in the United States by state and city](https://www.foundrole.com/locations/us?utm_source=ai_markdown) - [H1B sponsors by location](https://www.foundrole.com/h1b-sponsors?utm_source=ai_markdown) - [H1B salaries](https://www.foundrole.com/h1b-salaries?utm_source=ai_markdown) - [Sectors and industries](https://www.foundrole.com/sectors?utm_source=ai_markdown) - [Jobs by career field](https://www.foundrole.com/careers?utm_source=ai_markdown) - [Latest jobs](https://www.foundrole.com/jobs/latest?utm_source=ai_markdown)