Kong Gateway / Kubernetes Senior API Developer – VA Lighthouse Platform (Remote)

 

Remote (U.S.)

Supporting the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Full-Time

Salary: $150,000 – $170,000 annually (based on experience)

Public Trust Clearance Required (or ability to obtain)

 

Mission Impact

This role supports modernization initiatives for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) by designing and managing the API infrastructure that powers the VA Lighthouse digital health platform. Your work will enable secure healthcare data exchange, scalable digital services, and improved access to care for Veterans nationwide.

Position Overview

Fathom Management, Inc. is seeking a Senior API Developer to lead Kong Gateway administration and enterprise API management across multiple engineering teams supporting a federal healthcare modernization program.

This role combines API platform engineering, Kubernetes operations, DevOps automation, and API governance to ensure secure and scalable integration across healthcare systems. The ideal candidate will bring deep expertise in Kong Gateway, OpenAPI standards, cloud infrastructure, and DevSecOps practices while mentoring engineering teams and establishing platform standards for API delivery.

You will collaborate with platform engineers, architects, DevOps teams, and federal stakeholders to support the VA Lighthouse platform and digital healthcare ecosystem.

Technology Stack

Kong Gateway, Kubernetes, AWS Cloud, OpenAPI (OAS), DevSecOps CI/CD, GitOps (ArgoCD/Flux), JWT Authentication, Service Mesh (Envoy/Istio), Observability Platforms (Datadog, Splunk, Prometheus, OpenTelemetry)

Key Responsibilities

API Platform Engineering

• Provide deep expertise in Kong Gateway platform administration.
• Configure and manage Kong routes, services, consumers, upstreams, certificates, rate limiting, and logging.
• Design, implement, and maintain custom Kong plugins and policy transformations.
• Operate Kong in Kubernetes environments using Helm or operator-based deployments.

API Design & Governance

• Define enterprise API design standards and review APIs for consistency, usability, and backward compatibility.
• Author and maintain OpenAPI Specification (OAS) contracts and implement versioning and deprecation strategies.
• Enable lifecycle management of OpenAPI documentation and governance pipelines.
• Implement and manage API governance frameworks including validation pipelines and semantic versioning.

Security & Identity Integration

• Implement and maintain authentication and authorization patterns, including JWT validation, claims mapping, and key rotation.
• Integrate APIs with enterprise identity systems such as Active Directory and LDAP-style authentication ecosystems.
• Enforce API gateway security controls, encryption, and access policies.

Cloud & DevOps Platform Engineering

• Deploy and manage Kubernetes resources, including Deployments, Services, Ingress/Gateway API objects, ConfigMaps, Secrets, and NetworkPolicies.
• Provision and maintain AWS infrastructure resources, including compute, networking, load balancing, DNS, certificates, and secrets management.
• Implement CI/CD and GitOps workflows supporting automated configuration promotion and rollback.

Observability & Platform Operations

• Implement API monitoring, analytics, and reporting dashboards to track usage, latency, error rates, and consumer activity.
• Maintain operational observability stacks such as Datadog, Splunk, Prometheus/Grafana, ELK/OpenSearch, or OpenTelemetry.
• Troubleshoot Linux container runtime issues, TLS/certificate management, networking, DNS, and performance tuning.

Technical Leadership & Collaboration

• Mentor development teams and establish engineering standards for API platform development.
• Collaborate with DevOps teams, security engineers, architects, and product stakeholders.
• Support incident response and production troubleshooting as a technical consultant.

Required Qualifications

• Hands-on experience administering Kong Gateway (open-source) in production environments
• Experience developing or extending Kong plugins or advanced gateway policy configurations
• Strong experience with API gateway architecture, including authentication, routing, rate limiting, and transformations
• Strong API design expertise with OpenAPI Specification (OAS)
• Experience implementing API governance pipelines, validation frameworks, and versioning strategies
• Hands-on Kubernetes experience including deployment, scaling, and troubleshooting
• Experience implementing DevOps delivery pipelines including CI/CD and GitOps practices
• Experience implementing JWT authentication, claims validation, and key management
• Experience integrating APIs with enterprise identity systems such as Active Directory
• Bachelor's degree with 10+ years of professional experience
• Must be legally authorized to work in the United States
• Ability to obtain and maintain a VA Public Trust clearance

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience deploying Kong Gateway at scale across multiple teams or multi-tenant platforms
• Experience with AWS cloud platform engineering
• Experience with GitOps tools such as ArgoCD or Flux
• Experience with service mesh or gateway technologies such as Envoy, NGINX, or Istio
• Experience implementing observability platforms such as Datadog, Splunk, Prometheus/Grafana
• Experience implementing TLS, mTLS, and secure secrets management
• Knowledge of OWASP API security practices
• Experience working with federal compliance frameworks such as FedRAMP or FISMA
• Experience mentoring engineering teams and establishing platform standards
• Knowledge of SSO, SOA architecture, PowerShell scripting, Red Hat Linux environments
• Familiarity with healthcare data security requirements (PII and PHI)

Education Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related technical field
• 10+ years of professional experience in API development, platform engineering, or DevOps

 

Benefits & Career Growth

At Fathom Management, Inc., we provide a competitive benefits package designed to support employee well-being, financial stability, and professional development.

Employee Benefits Include

• Paid vacation, sick leave, and company holidays
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Life insurance coverage
• Short-term and long-term disability insurance
• 401(k) retirement plan with company match and immediate vesting
• Military leave benefits
• Training and professional development opportunities
• Tuition reimbursement
• Employee wellness initiatives
• Commuter benefits
• Additional voluntary benefits

About Fathom Management, Inc.

Fathom Management, Inc. supports federal healthcare modernization initiatives, including major transformation programs for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Our teams specialize in cloud modernization, API platforms, DevSecOps engineering, and digital healthcare transformation that improve healthcare access, operational efficiency, and the Veteran experience.

Joining Fathom Management means contributing to mission-critical programs that strengthen healthcare delivery for Veterans nationwide.

Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Statement

Fathom Management, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace.

All employment decisions-including recruitment, hiring, training, promotion, compensation, benefits, and termination-are made without regard to race, color, religion, creed, national origin, sex, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, citizenship status, veteran status, disability, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.