# SeatGeek Reclaimed API Gateway Control with a Custom Kubernetes Operator

Josh Woodward from SeatGeek explains how the company regained control of API gateway management at scale by building a custom Kubernetes operator around Kong. SeatGeek routes all public web traffic through Kong in Kubernetes, supports about 100 backend services, and must handle intense traffic spikes during major ticket onsales, which made fragmented HTTPRoute and KongPlugin configuration hard to manage across more than 1,000 resources. The biggest pain points were inconsistent rate-limiting settings, complex Okta OIDC setup for employee-only services, DNS risks tied to HTTPRoute annotations, limited centralized guardrails, and the risk of AI repeating bad patterns. SeatGeek’s solution was a higher-level custom resource called service perimeter that generates the underlying HTTP routes, Kong plugins, Vault secrets, and mesh resources automatically, with opinionated defaults, deep validation, and simple feature toggles. Woodward’s main lessons are to centralize control without hiding useful standards, preserve escape hatches for advanced cases, and roll out changes iteratively.