Engineering Manager

<h2>About Kernel</h2><p style="min-height:1.5em">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?</p><p style="min-height:1.5em"></p><p style="min-height:1.5em">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.</p><p style="min-height:1.5em"></p><p style="min-height:1.5em">Humans have worked around that mess for years. Agents cannot. They need a reliable business identity layer they can trust.</p><p style="min-height:1.5em"></p><p style="min-height:1.5em">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 <strong>Gong, Legora, Mistral, Canva and Checkout</strong> already use Kernel on their own systems. Agents are next, and there will be far more of them.</p><p style="min-height:1.5em"></p><p style="min-height:1.5em">We have raised $20M from top VCs and operators at Plaid, OpenAI, Slack and others, and we are growing 5x YoY.</p><p style="min-height:1.5em"></p><h2><strong>The Role</strong></h2><p style="min-height:1.5em">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 &amp; setting technical direction.</p><p style="min-height:1.5em">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.</p><p style="min-height:1.5em"></p><h2><strong>Key Responsibilities</strong></h2><ul style="min-height:1.5em"><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Build, hire, and develop a high-performing engineering team</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Help set technical direction and architecture decisions</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Work with the engineering to tackle some of our most difficult problems</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Own engineering delivery with an emphasis on velocity</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Collaborate closely with Product on roadmap and prioritisation</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Write code when needed so you'll stay close to the product</p></li></ul><p style="min-height:1.5em"></p><h2><strong>The Opportunity</strong></h2><p style="min-height:1.5em">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.</p><p style="min-height:1.5em"></p><h2><strong>About You</strong></h2><ul style="min-height:1.5em"><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">You have extensive experience in architecting enterprise-level systems, delivering on ambitious product visions, and building world class engineering teams.</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">You have worked at high-growth businesses, and might have previously started your own company.</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">You are highly analytical, and thinking proactively through the implications of your decisions, but also have high conviction and understand the importance of moving at pace and shipping often.</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">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.</p></li></ul><p style="min-height:1.5em"></p><h2><strong>Essential Experience</strong></h2><ul style="min-height:1.5em"><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">8+ years software engineering experience</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Track record of hiring and developing strong engineers</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Strong production systems background - you've built and scaled things that matter, and you’ve done something <em>hard</em> and lived to tell the tale</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Proven experience in distributed systems</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Experience operating autonomously in small, high-velocity environments - ideally in a startup</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">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</p></li></ul><p style="min-height:1.5em"></p><h2><strong>Nice-to-Have:</strong></h2><ul style="min-height:1.5em"><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Scaled an engineering team through a growth phase (5 → 20+ engineers), or from Series A to Series C</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Technical depth across the stack: NodeJS, Postgres, TypeScript, Kubernetes AI-driven or data-heavy product experience</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Understanding of LLMs (e.g., RAG, prompt engineering, evals)</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">CRM data models or workflow automation knowledge</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">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</p></li></ul><p style="min-height:1.5em"></p><h2>⚠️ This role may not be for you if you:</h2><ul style="min-height:1.5em"><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Insist on shipping pixel-perfect code</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Prefer managing from a distance without technical involvement</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">Need extensive process and structure before making decisions</p></li></ul><p style="min-height:1.5em"></p><h2><strong>❌ This role is definitely not for you:</strong></h2><ul style="min-height:1.5em"><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">If you over-rely on AI coding tools (Cursor, Claude Code) to the point where you don’t read or understand your own code</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">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</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">If you prefer fully remote work</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">If you don’t like early-stage startup pace</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">If you’re seeking a purely ‘hands-off’ role</p></li></ul><p style="min-height:1.5em"></p><h2>Tech Stack</h2><ul style="min-height:1.5em"><li><p style="min-height:1.5em"><strong>Backend:</strong> AWS, NodeJS, TypeScript, Postgres, Clickhouse, Kubernetes</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em"><strong>Frontend:</strong> NextJS, TypeScript, Tailwind</p></li></ul><p style="min-height:1.5em">You don't need to know everything, but you should be comfortable diving into any part of the stack.</p><p style="min-height:1.5em"></p><h2>What We Offer</h2><p style="min-height:1.5em">We will do our best to offer you a ride of a lifetime. It will not be easy, but it will be thrilling.</p><ul style="min-height:1.5em"><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">💰 <strong>Salary:</strong> £130,000 – £170,000 + equity</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">🗓️ 24 days holiday per year + bank holidays</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">🥕 £450 Monthly Office Dinner Allowance</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">✈️ 2 weeks work-from-anywhere</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">🍼 Generous parental leave policy</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">💼 Pension plan</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">💻 Top-spec equipment and central London office</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">🎉 Team events and dinners</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">🚀 Work directly with the founders to scale the systems that power enterprise AI</p></li><li><p style="min-height:1.5em">🏆 High-autonomy, high-trust environment with a small team shipping at pace</p></li></ul><p style="min-height:1.5em"></p><h2>🎫 <strong>Visas &amp; Relocation</strong></h2><p style="min-height:1.5em">We sponsor visas for exceptional candidates and provide relocation support for those moving to London.</p><p style="min-height:1.5em"></p><h2><strong>Interview Process</strong></h2><p style="min-height:1.5em"><strong>Stage 1: Introductory Call (45 minutes)</strong></p><p style="min-height:1.5em">An introductory conversation covering your professional background and what you’re looking for in your next role.</p><p style="min-height:1.5em"><strong>Stage 2: Hiring Manager Call (30 minutes)</strong></p><p style="min-height:1.5em">A conversation with Marcus focused on ways of working and team collaboration.</p><p style="min-height:1.5em"><strong>Stage 3: Technical Deep Dive (60 minutes)</strong></p><p style="min-height:1.5em">An in-depth discussion exploring your architectural thinking and past technical decisions.</p><p style="min-height:1.5em"><strong>Stage 4: Leadership Scenario Interview (60 minutes)</strong></p><p style="min-height:1.5em">An onsite interview at our London office, where we’ll walk through real challenges you’d likely face in the role.</p><p style="min-height:1.5em"><strong>Final Stage: Founders Interview</strong></p><p style="min-height:1.5em">A conversation with our co-founders, Anders and Marcus, focused on values alignment and long-term vision.</p><p style="min-height:1.5em">Upon mutual fit: references and offer stage.</p><hr><p>Compensation: £140K – £180K • Offers Equity</p><ul><li>Base Salary • Base Salary £140K – £180K • Offers Equity</li></ul><p>Find <a href="https://www.arbeitnow.co.uk">Jobs in United Kingdom</a> on Arbeitnow</a>