Remote Engineering Manager — API-First, Scalable Systems

Midwest Startups; Chicago, Saint Petersburg (IL, FL); Hybrid; USD 170,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary and equity (RSUs)

401(k) with company match

Medical, dental, vision benefits

HSA contributions

Life insurance & disability

Paid parental leave

Job summary

Kin is seeking a passionate Engineering Manager to scale product architecture and elevate engineering execution. You will lead a full-stack team across front-end and back-end, delivering roadmap features while strengthening architecture and standards in a rapidly growing environment.

You will guide monolith decomposition into modular services, drive observability and reliability, and collaborate with Product to align technical strategy with business priorities, while hiring and mentoring

Qualifications

• Minimum 8 years of hands-on software development experience with strong computer science fundamentals.
• Proven experience managing or leading a team of engineers in a fast-paced environment.
• Demonstrated success acting as a player-coach who contributes meaningfully to the codebase.
• Experience building distributed systems and decomposing monoliths into modular services.
• Hands-on experience with API-first and schema-first workflows (OpenAPI/Swagger, contract testing, interface-driven development).
• Experience with relational and NoSQL databases, message queues/brokers, and distributed system design patterns.
• Ability to design systems with clear service ownership, reliability, and modularity.
• Excellent command of the full SDLC: analysis, design, development, testing, deployment, and support.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to convey complex technical concepts clearly.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop a high-performing full-stack engineering team, fostering ownership, accountability, and continuous growth.
• Serve as a hands-on player-coach, contributing meaningful production code while setting technical direction.
• Drive delivery of roadmap initiatives from concept through production with predictable, high-quality execution.
• Guide the decomposition of monolithic systems into modular, distributed services with clear ownership boundaries.
• Establish best practices for observability, resilience, and distributed communication (tracing, retries, idempotency, error handling).
• Lead architectural discussions to ensure long-term maintainability, reliability, and performance.
• Partner cross-functionally with Product, PMO, and other engineering teams to align technical strategy with business priorities.
• Participate in recruiting, interviewing, and hiring to strengthen the engineering organization.

Skills

Hands-on software dev

Team leadership

Player-coach

Distributed systems

API-first / OpenAPI

Relational & NoSQL

SDLC mastery

Strong communication

Tools

AWS

CI/CD

Observability tooling

Job description

Kin is seeking a passionate Engineering Manager to scale product architecture and elevate engineering execution. You will lead a full-stack team across front-end and back-end, delivering roadmap features while strengthening architecture and standards in a rapidly growing environment.

You will guide monolith decomposition into modular services, drive observability and reliability, and collaborate with Product to align technical strategy with business priorities, while hiring and mentoring