API Platform & Gateway Engineering (Apigee & Kong)

Job Description: Manager API Platform & Gateway Engineering (Apigee & Kong)

Experience -8+ Years

Location-Delhi, Kolkata.

About the Role We are seeking a highly skilled and visionary Manager – API Platform Engineering to lead our API Integration team. In this role, you will be responsible for defining the strategy, architecture, and delivery of our enterprise API gateways.Our current ecosystem leverages both Google Apigee and Kong API Gateway. You will play a pivotal role in managing these platforms, driving API governance, leading a team of talented engineers, and potentially leading transition/coexistence strategies between these two platforms.The ideal candidate is a blend of a hands-on technical architect and an empathetic people leader who can collaborate with cross-functional teams to deliver secure, scalable, and high-performing API solutions

.Key Responsibilities1. Technical Leadership & Architecture 

• Architecture & Design: Define the architecture, deployment patterns, and best practices for both Apigee (X/Hybrid) and Kong (Enterprise/Gateway).
• API Security: Establish robust security protocols across both gateways, including OAuth 2.0, OIDC, SAML, JWT, rate limiting, and mTLS.
• Hybrid/Multi-Cloud Strategy: Oversee the deployment and management of API gateways across on-premises, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments (AWS/GCP/Azure).
• Migration & Coexistence: Design and execute strategies for API migration, integration, or coexistence between Apigee and Kong platforms.
• Performance Optimization: Ensure high availability, low latency, and scalability of the API platforms.

2. Team Management & Delivery 

• People Leadership: Recruit, mentor, and manage a team of API platform engineers and developers. Conduct performance reviews and foster professional growth.
• Agile Delivery: Lead the team in sprint planning, backlog grooming, and daily stand-ups to ensure timely delivery of integration projects.
• DevOps Integration: Drive automation by integrating Apigee and Kong configuration deployments into CI/CD pipelines (using Jenkins, GitLab CI, Ansible, Terraform, etc.).

3. Strategy, Governance & Stakeholder Management 

• API Governance: Define and enforce API design standards (OpenAPI/Swagger), versioning policies, and monetization strategies.
• Vendor Management: Act as the primary technical point of contact for Google (Apigee) and Kong representatives, managing licenses, support tickets, and roadmap alignments.
• Developer Experience: Evangelize the use of Developer Portals (both Apigee and Kong) to ensure a seamless self-service experience for internal and external consumers.
• Monitoring & Analytics: Implement comprehensive logging, monitoring, and alerting dashboards using tools like Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, or ELK.

Required Skills Technical Expertise (Apigee & Kong):

• Apigee Expertise: Strong experience with Apigee X, or Apigee Hybrid. Proven ability in writing custom policies (Java, JavaScript, Python), Shared Flows, Flow Hooks and configuring Developer Portals.
• Kong Expertise: Proven experience with Kong Gateway (OSS or Enterprise), Kong Mesh/Kuma, Konnect ,Insomnia and configuring Kong plugins.
• Containerization: Deep understanding of Kubernetes, Docker, and Service Mesh (Istio/Linkerd) in relation to Kong deployment.
• Protocols: Deep knowledge of REST, GraphQL, gRPC, SOAP, and WebSockets.

Professional/Soft Skills:

• Excellent communication skills with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
• Strong problem-solving skills and a collaborative mindset