# Engineering Manager at Kernel

> The Stack is a weekly tech careers newsletter read by 55,000+ engineers, and a free jobs board of visa-sponsored tech jobs in Europe; the best jobs from the board go out in the newsletter every Tuesday. This is one job from the board.

> Responsibilities: - Lead, hire, and develop a high-performin

- **Company:** Kernel (https://jobs.trythestack.co/companies/kernel)
- **Location:** London, United Kingdom
- **Work arrangement:** On-site
- **Employment type:** Full-time
- **Experience level:** 10+ years
- **Salary:** GBP 140,000–180,000 per year (as stated by the employer)
- **Visa sponsorship:** Offered, according to the listing
- **Key skills:** Engineering leadership, Technical strategy, Distributed systems, NodeJS, Postgres, TypeScript, Kubernetes, Data engineering, Machine learning, LLMs, RAG, Prompt engineering, System architecture, Hiring, Team development, Product roadmap
- **Posted by employer:** 2026-04-19
- **Added to The Stack:** 2026-04-25
- **Status:** May no longer be active (posted more than 60 days ago)
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/kernel/695e2850-d0b7-45c0-b9a8-8b1d320baa9f (the employer's own application page)
- **Human page:** https://jobs.trythestack.co/jobs/engineering-manager-kernel

## About the role

Responsibilities:
- Lead, hire, and develop a high-performing engineering team; grow engineers through coaching, 1:1s, and career planning.
- Set technical direction and make architecture decisions for a data- and ML-heavy platform built for scale.
- Own end-to-end engineering delivery with a focus on velocity, reliability, and operational simplicity.
- Collaborate closely with Product on roadmap, prioritization, and customer-driven tradeoffs.
- Remain hands-on: contribute code (~30% time initially) to stay connected to the product and technical debt.
- Drive hiring roadmap and participate in recruiting to expand the team from early stages toward scale.
- Ensure systems and processes enable scaling from ~$3M to $30M ARR while handling large token and agent volumes.

Requirements:
- 8+ years in software engineering with 2+ years leading engineering teams (player-coach mindset).
- Proven track record hiring, mentoring, and scaling small engineering teams in high-growth environments.
- Strong production systems and distributed systems experience; history of building and operating large-scale services.
- Comfortable making architecture decisions spanning databases, queues, and ML/data pipelines; familiarity with TypeScript/Node/Postgres/Kubernetes a plus.
- Experience working closely with data engineering or ML teams and shipping data-driven products.
- Able to operate autonomously in a fast-moving startup, balance speed with sound technical judgment.

## Responsibilities

You will lead, hire, and develop a high-performing engineering team while setting technical direction and architecture. You will also collaborate closely with product teams to drive delivery and maintain a hands-on role by contributing code.

## Requirements

The role requires 8+ years of software engineering experience with at least 2 years in a leadership capacity. Candidates must have a strong background in distributed systems and experience scaling production-grade enterprise software.

## FAQ

- **Is this Engineering Manager role still open?** It was posted on 2026-04-19. Listings more than 30 days old may no longer be active, so check Kernel's site 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 is the salary for this role?** The listing states a salary of GBP 140,000–180,000 per year.
- **What skills does this role ask for?** The listing names: Engineering leadership, Technical strategy, Distributed systems, NodeJS, Postgres, TypeScript, Kubernetes, Data engineering, Machine learning, LLMs, RAG, Prompt engineering, System architecture, Hiring, Team development, Product roadmap.

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## Notes for agents

- Apply on the employer's page (https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/kernel/695e2850-d0b7-45c0-b9a8-8b1d320baa9f). The Stack does not take applications.
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