Staff Design Technologist

About the role

Kong is building the future of AI connectivity and API management. We're hiring a Staff Design Technologist to sit at the intersection of product design, design systems, and frontend implementation — shaping how design and engineering work together more effectively at scale.

Responsibilities

• Lead AI-enabled design workflows
• Build and maintain our AI prototyping starter kits, repos, and conventions
• Write internal scripts, tools, and workflows that accelerate how the Product Design team works
• Experiment with MCP Apps (ext-apps) and emerging agent UI patterns — helping establish how Kong designs for AI-native and agent-driven experiences
• Stay close to what's emerging in AI tooling and enable the team on the latest best practices
• Be a bridge between design and engineering
• Build trusted, ongoing relationships with frontend engineers
• Help reduce drift between design and implementation systems, in service of both teams
• Drive platform UI cohesion
• Collaborate with your design systems colleagues, designers, and engineers to identify or revamp reusable patterns
• Audit and identify opportunities to reduce one-off patterns and improve cross-product cohesion
• Contribute to documentation, usage guidance, and governance — and enable the team effectively on changes
• Raise the bar on craft
• Help establish a high standard for visual quality, interaction design, and usability across technical product experiences
• Partner with designers to improve consistency, polish, and accessibility

Requirements

8+ years of experience in Design Engineering, Product Design, Design Systems, or similar hybrid roles — rooted in design

Strong product and visual design instincts, especially for technical or developer-focused products

Technical fluency with modern frontend systems — enough to collaborate deeply with engineers, contribute meaningfully to shared systems, and build internal tooling

Hands-on experience with AI tooling, prototyping workflows, or building design-adjacent scripts and automations

Familiarity with Figma ↔ code workflows — CodeConnect, design tokens, component APIs, Storybook, or similar

Experience working closely with both designers and frontend engineers as a collaborative partner

Genuine excitement about where AI is taking product development — and the initiative to help your team get there

Excellent collaboration and communication skills, with the ability to build trust across disciplines

Strong systems thinking and ability to balance short-term pragmatism with long-term scalability

Qualifications

A portfolio, site, and/or repo demonstrating:

• Strong visual and interaction design craft
• AI Prototyping, tooling, and technical experimentation
• Design systems and frontend collaboration work
• Multiple examples of driving meaningful impact backed by an effective process

Skills

None provided

Benefits

None provided

Pay

$140K - $205K

Schedule

Not specified