Software Engineer IIISenior, AI Gateway

About ngrok Inc.

ngrok is an all-in-one cloud networking platform that secures transforms and routes traffic to services running anywhere. Instead of cobbling together nginx NLBs VPNs model routers and oodles of other tools developers solve every networking problem with one gateway. Doesnt matter if theyre sharing localhost or running AI workloads in production.

Were trusted by more than 9 million developers at companies like GitHub Okta HashiCorp and Twilio. What started as a way to put your local app on a public URL has grown into a universal gateway for API delivery AI inference device fleets and site-to-site connectivity. Its the same ngrok that millions of developers have loved and leaned on every day for years now with the power to run production traffic at scale.

A few things you should know:

• We are obsessed with our pets Viper sunglasses and Bufo (yes the toad)
• We have a designated Chief Emoji Officer - they are vital to our success!
• We like software thats serious and culture thats not

Still reading Good. Theres more below worth your time.

About the AI Gateway Team

Our AI Gateway team builds the systems that define how AI traffic is identified controlled and understood as it passes through ngrok.

We own the AI-specific control plane at the gateway layer: policies usage tracking and enforcement that sit directly on live customer traffic. Our systems must behave correctly under real-world conditionstraffic spikes unexpected model behavior misconfigured policies and customers asking Why was this blocked or Where did my tokens go

What Youll Actually Do

• Build and evolve the AI Gateway: Youll work on the AI-aware gateway components that classify and handle AI traffic in real time. This code runs directly in the request path and must be fast safe and predictable.
• Own AI traffic policy enforcement: Youll design and implement AI Gateway Traffic Policy Objectsrate limits usage caps and access rules specific to AI workloads. These policies exist to prevent runaway costs misuse and accidental exposure without breaking legitimate traffic.
• Track AI usage and token consumption: Youll build and maintain systems that accurately measure AI usagerequests tokens and related metadataso customers can understand how their AI systems behave and what theyre consuming.
• Make AI behavior observable and explainable: Youll expose clear trustworthy signals around AI traffic: what was allowed or blocked which policies applied and how usage accumulated. When customers ask what happened the gateway should already know.
• Design abstractions that hide complexity: Youll work with product and design to build AI-specific gateway primitives that feel intentional and safe without leaking provider quirks or infrastructure details into customer workflows.
• Ship systems customers trust in production: Youll collaborate closely with Gateway Customer Data and Platform teams to ensure AI usage data policy enforcement and billing signals line upso customers can turn these features on with confidence.

You Might Be a Great Fit If

• Youre comfortable in a statically typed compiled language such as Go Rust C or Java (with bonus points for Go)
• Youve worked with AI/LLMs and can appreciate their unique brand of edge-cases
• You care about developer experience and thoughtful abstractions
• You enjoy defining system behavior not just plumbing
• Youve thought about retries limits and costs before being asked
• You like systems that move complexity from the user to the system

Extra credit if youve worked on:

• AI platforms or inference infrastructure
• API gateways with product-level opinions
• Usage limits quotas or billing-adjacent systems
• Customer-facing observability tools

Tech Stack

ngrok runs entirely on AWS. Engineers develop by using remote development tools and/or ssh to connect to remote EC2 environments that run a full Kubernetes cluster of the ngrok stack closely mirroring production. The codebase is primarily Go and TypeScript. We use Postgres for persistence Kafka for streaming Protobuf for service boundaries and Kubernetes Terraform Helm and Buildkite to operate and ship reliably. React is used for user interfaces and GitHub supports our development workflows and remembers everything.

Location

This is a remote position for candidates outside of the Bay Area and a hybrid role for candidates within commuting distance to San Francisco. Our Bay Area employees commute to the office on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Sponsorship

All candidates must be US-based and legally authorized to work in the United States.

At this time ngrok is unable to provide visa sponsorship for this position. Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States on a permanent ongoing basis without the need for current or future sponsorship.

Compensation

Senior Software Engineer

• Tier 1 (SF LA Seattle NYC): $180000 $225000
• Tier 2 (rest of US): $165600 $207000

Software Engineer III

• Tier 1 (SF LA Seattle NYC): $160000 $200000
• Tier 2 (rest of US): $147200 $184000

Job level and actual compensation will be evaluated based on factors including but not limited to qualifications objectively assessed during the interview process (including skills and prior relevant experience potential impact and scope of role) internal equity with other team members market data and specific work location. We provide an attractive mix of salary and equity.

#LI-Remote

Full Time Employee Benefits

• Health stuff that actually matters. Full premiums covered on base healthcare dental and vision for you. Half covered for your dependents. Mental health and well-being support included because taking care of your brain is as important as taking care of your teeth.
• Retirement matching that doesnt suck. 401(k) with 100% match up to 3% of your salary and 50% match up to another 2%. Future you will appreciate present you.
• Actually flexible time off. We say open flexible vacation policy and actually mean it. Take the time you need. Your manager will bug you if youre not taking enough.
• Parental leave thats realistic. Up to 16 weeks if you give birth up to 8 weeks for new parents (birth adoption fosteringhowever your family grows).
• Money to keep growing. Annual professional development budget for books courses conferences or whatever helps you level up. Plus an annual home office/desk stipend to make your workspace not terrible.
• Work from wherever. Co-working space stipend if you want to get out of your house but arent near our SF office.
• Lunch on us. 2x per week for employees onsite at our San Francisco office. Free food tastes better.
• Company offsites. Twice a year we get the whole team together. Its part strategy part bonding part excuse to hang out with Bufo (the toad).
• Regular feedback and fair compensation. Bi-annual reviews to make sure youre getting real feedback and staying competitively compensated. No surprises no waiting around for performance conversations.