In this paper, we study the dynamics of a charged particle interacting with the non-null electromagnetic knot wave background. We analyze the classical system in the Hamilton–Jacobi formalism and find the action, the linear momentum and the trajectory of the particle. Also, we calculate the effective mass and the emitted radiation along the knot wave. Next, we quantize the system in the classical strong knot wave background by using the strong-field QED canonical formalism. We explicitly construct the Furry picture and calculate the Volkov solutions of the Dirac equation. As an application, we discuss the one-photon Compton effect where we determine the general form of the S-matrix. Also, we discuss in detail the first partial amplitudes in the transition matrix in two simple backgrounds and show that there is a pair of states for which these amplitudes are identical.