Senior Engineering Manager - Test Function

Overview

Lead global Quality Engineering for Kong’s runtime platforms and architect the next-generation AI-driven testing strategy.

What you'll do

• Lead, mentor, and grow a geographically distributed SDET team across North America, Europe, and Asia.
• Define and execute an AI/LLM/autonomous test-agent roadmap for the testing lifecycle.
• Develop generative AI capabilities for automated test case generation and smart failure triage.
• Establish low-latency, high-throughput C/Lua/Rust data plane testing strategies.
• Modernize end-to-end testing automation integrated into CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, Docker, K8s).
• Embed upstream quality ownership by partnering with Software Engineering and Product Management.
• Define QE health metrics such as CI signal reliability, automation coverage, defect density, time-to-triage, and release stability.

What you'll need

• 10+ years in software engineering/SDET building and scaling enterprise test automation systems.
• 4+ years in engineering management leading distributed/global software engineering or SDET teams.
• Experience applying LLMs, Generative AI, or autonomous agent frameworks to software quality or developer workflows.
• Ability to manage follow-the-sun operational cadence, vendor partnerships, and cross-timezone execution.

Nice to have

• Experience testing high-performance networking data planes, proxies, or API Gateways (e.g., Kong, NGINX, Envoy).
• Background in performance, chaos engineering, and load testing high-availability SaaS platforms.
• Involvement or contributions to open-source quality frameworks or AI development tooling.