Engineering Lead

Kernel is building the business registry for agents, issuing a permanent KERN ID for every business plus the context an agent needs to act on it. The Engineering Lead is a hands-on player-coach role with a spike in technical strategy, owning engineering delivery end-to-end, from developing engineers to solving difficult engineering problems and setting technical direction. The role involves roughly 20% time contributing code and 80% leading the team, with the ratio shifting as the company scales. Tech stack: Backend: AWS, NodeJS, TypeScript, Postgres, Clickhouse, Kubernetes. Frontend: NextJS, TypeScript, Tailwind. Interview process: Introductory Call (45 min), Hiring Manager Call (30 min), Technical Deep Dive (60 min), Leadership Scenario Interview onsite in London (60 min), Founders Interview, then references and offer.

Responsibilities

Build, hire, and develop a high-performing engineering team; Help set technical direction and architecture decisions; Work with the engineering team to tackle some of the 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 stay close to the product; Play a leading role in moving towards automation to enable rapid scaling with increased complexity and customer nuances

Requirements

8+ years software engineering experience; Track record of hiring and developing strong engineers; Strong production systems background; 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; Extensive experience architecting enterprise-level systems, delivering on ambitious product visions, and building world class engineering teams; Experience working at high-growth businesses; Previously led engineering at a company from its earliest stages; Highly analytical, with high conviction and a focus on moving at pace and shipping often

Nice to have

Scaled an engineering team through a growth phase (5 to 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

Benefits

£450 monthly office dinner allowance; 24 days holiday per year plus bank holidays; 2 weeks work-from-anywhere; Generous parental leave policy; Pension plan; Top-spec equipment and central London office; Team events and dinners; Equity; Visa sponsorship for exceptional candidates; Relocation support for those moving to London; Work directly with the founders