Sr. Technical Recruiter (Contract)

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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.

Sr. Technical Recruiter

Location: Remote U.S.

We are seeking a highly strategic Senior Technical Recruiter to join our team. This role is crucial for scaling our most complex and critical technical teams and will be a key driver in shaping Kong’s future talent strategy.

About the Role:

Join us in building Kong's future! Reporting to the Sr. Manager of Technical Recruiting, you will serve as a critical, trusted advisor to Engineering, Product, and Professional Services leadership across North America. Your mission is to solve the most challenging scaling problems, own the hiring for highly specialized and senior roles, and drive innovation in our recruiting processes. You will also be key in shaping our employer brand and leading executive-level recruiting readouts.

What You’ll Do

• Architect and drive specialized sourcing strategies to secure world-class, typically hard-to-find, talent for senior-level (Senior, Staff, Principal) and highly specialized technical roles.

• Serve as a talent consultant to executives and senior leadership, leveraging deep market intelligence to advise on organizational design, compensation structures, and global talent mapping.

• Lead the end-to-end recruitment process for your critical roles, including complex offer negotiation, while ensuring an exceptional, consistent candidate experience.

• Design and implement scalable recruiting initiatives (e.g., referral programs, interview training, process documentation) that improve efficiency and quality of hire across the entire talent acquisition function.

• Proactively build and maintain a hyper-focused pipeline of passive candidates, positioning Kong as an employer of choice in competitive markets.

• Conduct thorough screenings and interviews to assess candidates' technical skills and cultural fit, acting as a steward for our hiring bar.

• Maintain meticulous job postings and candidate data within our Applicant Tracking System (ATS).

What You Bring

• 5+ years of progressive, full-cycle technical recruiting experience, with at least 2 years focused on Senior/Staff/Principal level hiring within a high-growth SaaS or cloud-native environment.

• Deep mastery of the highly competitive North American technical landscape, with a proven ability to successfully compete for talent against top-tier late-stage start-ups and public companies.

• Proven ability to use data—both quantitative and qualitative—to influence senior leaders and executives.

• Demonstrated ownership of core TA programs or significant process improvements across the recruiting lifecycle.

• Expert command of advanced sourcing and candidate engagement techniques, moving beyond standard LinkedIn Recruiter usage.

• Ability to challenge ideas and effectively influence others.

• Ability to distill complex information into a consumable and organized format with a focus on content, tone, and structure.

• Great collaborator and partner to HRBPs, Finance, and other internal stakeholders.

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.

• Experience recruiting across EMEA is a plus.

  
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About Kong:

Kong Inc., a leading developer of API and AI connectivity technologies, is building the infrastructure that powers the agentic era. Trusted by the Fortune 500 and startups alike, Kong's unified API and AI platform, Kong Konnect, enables organizations to secure, manage, accelerate, govern, and monetize the flow of intelligence across APIs and AI models. For more information, visit www.konghq.com.