Engineering Leader - Hands-on Tech Strategist & Team Builder

Kernel Company; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 130,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Salary equity opportunity

6 weeks total holiday? actually 24

Dinner allowance

Work-from-anywhere 2 weeks

Parental leave

Pension plan

Top-spec equipment

Team events

Direct work with founders

Job summary

Kernel is building a pioneering business identity layer and is hiring a player-coach engineering leader to own end-to-end delivery for the team. You will balance hands-on coding (about 20%) with 80% team leadership, setting technical direction and architecture while ensuring fast delivery and alignment with product roadmaps.

You will scale an engineering function, hire top talent, and mentor engineers in a fast-growing startup. London-based role with visa and relocation support.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in architecting enterprise-level systems and delivering ambitious product visions.
• Experience in high-growth businesses and possibly starting a company.
• Analytical thinker with conviction, able to move fast and ship often.
• Led engineering at an early-stage company and mentored engineers to grow.

Responsibilities

• Build, hire, and develop a high-performing engineering team.
• Help set technical direction and architecture decisions.
• Work with engineering to tackle difficult problems.
• Own engineering delivery with emphasis on velocity.
• Collaborate with Product on roadmap and prioritisation.
• Write code when needed to stay close to the product.

Skills

Enterprise-scale architecture

Hiring engineers

Production systems

Distributed systems

Startup/autonomous environments

Data/ML collaboration

Tools

NodeJS

PostgreSQL

TypeScript

Kubernetes

AWS

ClickHouse

Job description

Kernel is building a pioneering business identity layer and is hiring a player-coach engineering leader to own end-to-end delivery for the team. You will balance hands-on coding (about 20%) with 80% team leadership, setting technical direction and architecture while ensuring fast delivery and alignment with product roadmaps.

You will scale an engineering function, hire top talent, and mentor engineers in a fast-growing startup. London-based role with visa and relocation support.