Engineering Manager at Kernel

About the role

Responsibilities:
- Lead and grow a high-performing engineering team (player-coach): hire, mentor, set expectations and develop engineers.
- Define technical direction and architecture decisions for your area, balancing speed, quality and long-term maintainability.
- Own end-to-end engineering delivery and velocity; remove blockers and manage risks to meet roadmap commitments.
- Collaborate closely with Product on roadmap, prioritisation and scoping; stay connected to customers and product outcomes.
- Contribute code (~20% time) to stay hands-on, solve hard problems and influence technical standards.
- Foster a culture of fast iteration, strong engineering practices and measurable outcomes.

Requirements:
- Extensive experience building and architecting enterprise-scale systems and leading engineering teams in high-growth environments.
- Proven track record of hiring, coaching and scaling engineering orgs from early stages.
- Strong technical hands-on background (full-stack or backend) and familiarity with distributed systems and data-intensive products.
- Excellent analytical judgment, clear decision-making and comfort shipping rapidly with imperfect information.
- Startup experience or prior founder/operator background is a strong plus; strong communication and stakeholder skills required.

Responsibilities

You will lead an engineering team by setting technical direction, hiring top talent, and overseeing end-to-end delivery. You will also contribute code directly while collaborating with product teams to scale systems and solve complex engineering challenges.

Requirements

The ideal candidate has 8+ years of software engineering experience with a strong background in distributed systems and scaling enterprise-level products. You must have proven experience in leadership roles within high-growth startup environments and possess deep technical expertise across the stack.

Key skills

• Engineering management — in 66 other listings on The Stack
• Technical strategy — in 24 other listings on The Stack
• Distributed systems — in 306 other listings on The Stack
• NodeJS — in 24 other listings on The Stack
• Postgres — in 64 other listings on The Stack
• TypeScript — in 426 other listings on The Stack
• Kubernetes — in 534 other listings on The Stack
• Data engineering — in 113 other listings on The Stack
• Machine learning
• Architecture
• Team leadership
• Product roadmap
• Enterprise systems
• Startup experience
• LLMs
• Workflow automation

On The Stack (as of 2026-10-22)

• Kernel has 7 other listings on The Stack, 5 of them marked as offering visa sponsorship.
• 154 visa-sponsored jobs in the United Kingdom on The Stack, posted in the last 60 days.
• 31 visa-sponsored engineering manager jobs in Europe on The Stack, posted in the last 60 days.

Frequently asked questions about Kernel

Is this Engineering Manager role still open?

It was posted on 2026-10-21 and is listed as active on The Stack. Confirm on Kernel's application page before applying.

Does Kernel offer visa sponsorship?

This listing is marked as offering visa sponsorship. Eligibility rules are set by the employer, so check the details on Kernel's site.

Where is this role located?

The listing gives the location as London, United Kingdom. It is marked on-site.

What skills does this role ask for?

The listing names: Engineering management, Technical strategy, Distributed systems, NodeJS, Postgres, TypeScript, Kubernetes, Data engineering, Machine learning, Architecture, Team leadership, Product roadmap, Enterprise systems, Startup experience, LLMs, Workflow automation.