About Kernel
Kernel provides enterprise RevOps teams with AI-powered company data for their CRMs. We raised $14M in Series A funding from top VCs and operators at Plaid, OpenAI, and Slack to build an AI-native alternative to Dun & Bradstreet's entity and hierarchy data.
RevOps teams at Navan, Gong, Mistral, and AlphaSense use Kernel to run their organizations.
At Kernel, we process ≈30B tokens a day and run 1.8M+ agents daily, all on an architecture that’s intentionally simple: one database, one queue. It’s minimalism built for massive scale (For reference, Wikipedia has 2.3B tokens in the English wikipedia). Our queue processes a daily volume on par with the entire Visa network’s transactions (~365M/day). All of which has been built by a small but mighty team of engineers.
The Role
You’ll be a player-coach engineering leader with a spike in technical strategy, working closely with the founders to drive the hiring roadmap. You’ll own engineering delivery end-to-end - from developing exceptional engineers to setting technical direction - while helping the company grow from $3M to $30M ARR.
This is a hands-on leadership role. You’ll spend roughly 30% of your time contributing code and 70% leading the team, with that ratio shifting as we scale.
Key Responsibilities
* Build, hire, and develop a high-performing engineering team
* Help set technical direction and architecture decisions
* Own engineering delivery with an emphasis on velocity
* Collaborate closely with Product on roadmap and prioritization
* Write code when needed so you’ll stay close to the product
The opportunity
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.
About You
* 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 have 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.
Essential Experience
* 8+ years software engineering experience, with 2+ years leading engineering teams
* 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
🏆 Nice-to-Have:
* 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
⚠️ This role may not be for you if you:
* 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
* Frontend: NextJS, TypeScript, Tailwind
* You don't need to know everything, but you should be comfortable diving into any part of the stack.
What We Offer
We will do our best to offer you a ride of a lifetime. It will not be easy, but it will be thrilling.
* 💰 Salary: £140,000 – £200,000 + equity
* 🗓️ 24 days holiday per year + bank holidays
* ✈️ 2 weeks work-from-anywhere
* 💼 Pension plan
* 💻 Top-spec equipment and central London office
* 🍽️ Free dinner at the office
* 🎉 Team events and dinners
* 🚀 Work directly with the founders to scale the systems that power enterprise AI
❤️ Team
We are around 30 people with 7 engineers and 1 Product Manager, including:
* Sam Houghton, Founding Engineer
* Eleanor Leung, Senior Engineer
* David Saltares, Senior Engineer
* Stefan Sabev, Head of Product
* Tom Ankers, Senior Engineer
* Willis Chou, Senior Engineer
🎫 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: Take-home Task (≤ 2 hours)
Stage 4: Technical Interview (60-90 minutes) | A follow-up discuss on your take-home submission, followed by a discussion exploring your architectural thinking and past technical decisions.
Final Stage: Founders Interview (45min) | A conversation with our co-founders, Anders and Marcus, focused on values alignment and long-term vision.
Upon mutual fit: references and offer stage.
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