Kong Booking Software Hiring! Software Engineering Intern in Federal Territory - Ricebowl

Travel is one of the most exciting industries in Southeast Asia, and most of it still runs on WhatsApp, spreadsheets, and paper logbooks. Kong is changing that.

We build the booking and operations platform for the people behind the experiences: island-hopping outfits, food tours, firefly river cruises, cooking classes, and adventure operators. We help them take bookings, manage their schedules, and get paid, so they can spend less time on admin and more time out on the water, the trail, or the street. We're starting in Malaysia and expanding into Vietnam.

Many of our operators are small, family-run businesses: a boatman who's run the same river for twenty years, or a guide who turned her love of street food into a living. When Kong works, they get more bookings, lose fewer customers to no-shows and missed messages, and get their evenings back. The work you do here directly helps real people make a better living.

We're a small, founder-led team. You'll work directly with the founders, your code will reach real operators within days, and you'll see how a travel-tech product gets built from the inside.

This is a 3-month internship with a path to a full-time role.

What you'll do

You'll join as a full-stack engineer and ship real product features from start to finish. Your main project will be building Kong's connections to the world's biggest travel platforms, including Klook, GetYourGuide, and Viator. When an operator on Kong lists a tour, these integrations put it in front of millions of travellers and keep availability and bookings in sync in real time. You'll work on real-world API design, handling reservations across systems, and the edge cases that come up when a booking has to be right every time.

Alongside that, you'll typically:

• Build features across the stack: React interfaces, APIs, and database changes in Postgres (Supabase)

• Take a feature from a rough spec to production, including edge cases, testing, and cleanup

• Work on parts of the product operators use every day, such as bookings, scheduling, payments, guest communication, and onboarding

• Talk to us about what operators actually need, and help shape what gets built rather than just implementing tickets

• Join the founders and business development team on sales trips to meet operators where they work, providing technical support during demos, onboarding, and setup

Out of the office

This isn't an internship you'll spend entirely behind a screen. Part of the role is travelling with the founders and business development team on sales missions around Malaysia, to places like Johor, Penang, and Cherating.

On these trips you'll be the technical expert in the room. You'll help operators get set up on Kong, answer their questions, fix issues on the spot, and see firsthand how the people using your code actually run their businesses. Few engineers get to watch a food tour guide take their first booking on something they built. You will.

We're also documenting Kong's early days and the operators who took a chance on us, mostly on film. Yes, actual film. We're aware this is the most startup-founder thing we could possibly do, and we're doing it anyway. So there's a non-zero chance you'll be handed a camera and asked to get the shot. No photography experience required, but if you know how to load a roll of 35mm, we'll be very impressed.

Travel, accommodation, and meals on work trips are covered by Kong.

How we work

AI tools are central to how we build. We use Claude Code and agentic workflows every day, and we expect you to as well. The skill we care about is using these tools well: breaking problems down, giving good context, reviewing what comes back with a critical eye, and taking responsibility for the code you ship. Leaning on AI is encouraged; not understanding the code it wrote is not.

We favour shipping small and often, writing things down, and fixing the root cause rather than patching symptoms.

What we're looking for

• A final-year student or fresh graduate in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field

• A genuine passion for travel and experiences. Maybe you're the one who plans the itinerary for every trip with friends and family, keeps a list of places you're dying to visit, or always finds the hidden food spot. We build for the people who make those experiences happen, and caring about them makes you better at it.

• Solid fundamentals in JavaScript/TypeScript, plus some experience with React or another modern frontend framework

• Basic understanding of backend development and relational databases (SQL)

• Something you've built: a side project, coursework, a hackathon entry, or open source. We care more about this than your grades.

• Comfortable with ambiguity, and willing to ask questions when you're stuck instead of waiting

• Based in or able to relocate to Kuala Lumpur for the internship, and happy to travel within Malaysia for occasional multi-day trips

Nice to have: experience with Supabase or Postgres, Node.js, payments, or third-party API integrations (especially booking or reservation systems); an interest in tourism or small businesses.

The path to full-time

This internship is designed as a real trial for a full-time role. Toward the end of the three months, we'll sit down together and talk about a full-time offer. That decision is based on the quality of what you ship, how you work with the team, and how much you've grown. There's no fixed headcount you're competing for: if it's a fit, there's a role for you.

What you'll get

• RM1,000 monthly allowance

• Real ownership and production code from your first weeks

• Work trips to some of Malaysia's best destinations, meeting the operators who run them

• Direct mentorship from a founder with 10 years of experience in tech

How to apply

• Apply through LinkedIn with your CV and a link to something you've built. Optional but appreciated: a few sentences about a project you're proud of and one thing you'd change about it.