Engineering Manager

Kernel; United States; Remote; USD 173,000 - 226,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Top-spec equipment and central London

Job summary

Kernel объявляет о поиске руководителя инженерной команды для London. Ваша роль сочетает hands-on код и стратегическое лидерство, направление архитектуры и развитие команды в условиях быстрого роста.

Вы будете сотрудничать с продуктовым отделом, ускорять доставку решений, внедрять масштабируемые системы и помогать формировать technical direction компании, обеспечивая порядок и качество кода.

Qualifications

• 8+ лет опыта разработки ПО.
• Опыт построения высоконагруженных систем и команд.
• Опыт работы с распределёнными системами.
• Опыт работы в быстром темпе стартапов/компаний на быстрой фазы роста.
• Глубокие знания стека: NodeJS, Postgres, TypeScript, Kubernetes.
• Опыт в AI‑ориентированных или данных-ёмких продуктах и LLMs.

Responsibilities

• Построение, найм и развитие высокоэффективной инженерной команды.
• Установка технического направления и архитектурных решений.
• Работа с инженерией над самыми сложными задачами.
• Обеспечение доставки инженерии с упором на скорость.
• Тесное сотрудничество с продуктом по Roadmap и приоритетам.
• Писать код, чтобы оставаться ближе к продукту.
• Ведущая роль в автоматизации для масштабирования.

Skills

Leadership and teams

Distributed systems

Startup experience

Data-driven mindset

Automation mindset

Shipping high-quality code

Tools

AWS

NodeJS

TypeScript

Postgres

Clickhouse

Kubernetes

NextJS

Tailwind

Job description

Описание: Agents are starting to sell, buy and operate on behalf of companies. But before an agent can close a deal, qualify an account, route a lead or assess risk, it has to answer a basic question: which company is this? Today, that answer is messy, and no one answers it reliably. Business identity lives across CRMs, ERPs and third-party datasets full of duplicates, missing parent companies, stale addresses and incorrect enrichment. The cost shows up across the enterprise: sales teams miss revenue opportunities because they lack the right account context; operations teams take on avoidable exposure because risk signals are fragmented or wrong; and finance teams end up chasing, writing off, or defaulting on bad debt that should have been caught earlier. Humans have worked around that mess for years. Agents cannot. They need a reliable business identity layer they can trust. Kernel is building that layer: the business registry for agents. We issue a permanent KERN ID for every business, plus the context an agent needs to act on it. Ops, data and revenue teams at Gong, Legora, Mistral, Canva and Checkout already use Kernel on their own systems. Agents are next, and there will be far more of them. We have raised $20M from top VCs and operators at Plaid, OpenAI, Slack and others, and we are growing 5x YoY. You'll be a player-coach engineering leader with a spike in technical strategy, you'll own engineering delivery for your team end-to-end - from developing exceptional engineers to solving some of our most difficult engineering problems & setting technical direction. This is a hands-on leadership role. You'll spend roughly 20% of your time contributing code and 80% leading your team, with that ratio shifting as we scale.

Задачи:

• Build, hire, and develop a high-performing engineering team
• Help set technical direction and architecture decisions
• Work with the engineering to tackle some of our most difficult problems
• Own engineering delivery with an emphasis on velocity
• Collaborate closely with Product on roadmap and prioritisation
• Write code when needed so you'll stay close to the product
• We are in the unique situation that our commercial traction is ahead of our product. You’ll play a leading role in moving towards automation in a way that enables us to rapidly scale with increased complexity and specific customer nuances.

Требования:

• You have extensive experience in architecting enterprise-level systems, delivering on ambitious product visions, and building world class engineering teams.
• You have worked at high-growth businesses, and might have previously started your own company.
• You are highly analytical, and thinking proactively through the implications of your decisions, but also has high conviction and understand the importance of moving at pace and shipping often.
• You have previously led engineering at a company from its earliest stages, and don’t shy away from the manager role - you know what great looks like, and want to help engineers grow.
• 8+ years software engineering experience
• Track record of hiring and developing strong engineers
• Strong production systems background - you've built and scaled things that matter, and you’ve done something hard and lived to tell the tale
• Proven experience in distributed systems
• Experience operating autonomously in small, high-velocity environments - ideally in a startup
• Experience working in a data-focused company or closely alongside a data engineering/ML team - data is core to what we're building at Kernel, and you will play a key role in shaping how we grow that capability
• Scaled an engineering team through a growth phase (5 → 20+ engineers), or from Series A to Series C
• Technical depth across the stack: NodeJS, Postgres, TypeScript, Kubernetes
• AI-driven or data-heavy product experience
• Understanding of LLMs (e.g., RAG, prompt engineering, evals)
• CRM data models or workflow automation knowledge
• Hands-on Data Engineering or ML Engineering experience - as data becomes an increasingly large part of what we do, this would be a great asset for us to have
• Insist on shipping pixel-perfect code
• Prefer managing from a distance without technical involvement
• Need extensive process and structure before making decisions
• This role is definitely not for you: If you over-rely on AI coding tools (Cursor, Claude Code) to the point where you don’t read or understand your own code If you on the other hand don’t understand how these tools (Cursor, Claude Code, etc.) can be force multipliers for senior engineers if used correctly If you prefer fully remote work If you don’t like early-stage startup pace If you’re seeking a purely ‘hands-off’ role
• Tech Stack Backend: AWS, NodeJS, TypeScript, Postgres, Clickhouse, Kubernetes
• Frontend: NextJS, TypeScript, Tailwind
• You don't need to know everything, but you should be comfortable diving into any part of the stack.

Условия:

• Salary: £130,000 – £170,000 + equity
• 24 days holiday per year + bank holidays
• £450 Monthly Office Dinner Allowance
• 2 weeks work-from-anywhere
• Generous parental leave policy
• Pension plan
• Top-spec equipment and central London office
• Team events and dinners
• Work directly with the founders to scale the systems that power enterprise AI
• High-autonomy, high-trust environment with a small team shipping at pace

Visas & Relocation

We sponsor visas for exceptional candidates and provide relocation support for those moving to London.

Interview Process

• Stage 1: Introductory Call (45 minutes) An introductory conversation covering your professional background and what you’re looking for in your next role.
• Stage 2: Hiring Manager Call (30 minutes) A conversation with Marcus focused on ways of working and team collaboration.
• Stage 3: Technical Deep Dive (60 minutes) An in-depth discussion exploring your architectural thinking and past technical decisions.
• Stage 4: Leadership scenario Interview (60 minutes) An onsite interview at our London office, where we’ll walk through real challenges you’d likely face in the role.
• Final Stage: Founders Interview A conversation with our co-founders, Anders and Marcus, focused on values alignment and long-term vision.

Upon mutual fit: references and offer stage.