Engineering Lead

About us

Humaans is building the next generation of infrastructure for the workplace; software designed for companies that are scaling fast, operating globally, and pushing into new boundaries.

What started as a system of record has evolved into a broader platform for operating people globally. With Athena, our agentic AI layer, Humaans moves beyond data management into intelligent orchestration, connecting workflows across HR, IT, Finance, and Operations so organisations can act faster and with greater confidence, redefining how work gets done.

We work with ambitious teams across Europe and the US, from AI-native companies like Lovable, Poolside, Fyxer AI, and Tandem Health, to established, high-growth organisations scaling internationally and through acquisition, including Quantexa, Sellpy, Manychat, Gigs, Croud, and Threecolts. These teams don’t buy software for features,they buy leverage. The ability to run faster, cleaner, and with more control as complexity compounds.

To date, we’ve raised $20m in venture funding from some of the most respected founders, operators, and funds in technology: Lachy Groom (Physical Intelligence), Stewart Butterfield (Slack), Tobias Lütke (Shopify), Dylan Field (Figma), Jeff Weiner (LinkedIn), Claire Johnson (Stripe), Oliver Jay (OpenAI), Jay Simmons (Bond) as well as Y Combinator, Moonfire, Frontline Ventures, Pathlight Ventures, and Exor.

If you have massive ambition and want to work on a hard problem, with a small team that moves fast, at a moment when the category is genuinely up for grabs - this is it.

The role

We’re looking for an Engineering Lead to help shape both the product we build and the technical foundations behind it.

This is a hands-on engineering leadership role. You’ll remain close to the code, building end-to-end features and solving customer problems, while taking broader responsibility for technical direction, architecture and the quality of what we ship. You’ll help turn product ideas into thoughtful technical solutions and make decisions that allow us to move quickly without compromising the foundations we build on.

We obsess over the details and quality of our user-facing experiences and their implementation. You’ll work closely with Product and Design from definition through to release, bringing strong engineering judgement while maintaining an appreciation for the craft and simplicity of the end product.

You’ll also contribute beyond the immediate product roadmap, supporting customers and working with Sales and Marketing where technical context can help us solve problems and communicate the value of Humaans.

What you’ll do

• Help shape the product from early definition through to release

• Lead the technical approach for product areas, making pragmatic decisions about architecture, implementation and trade-offs

• Remain hands-on, building end-to-end features across our frontend and backend

• Write backend TypeScript across Node, Postgres, Redis and Kubernetes

• Write frontend TypeScript using React

• Fix bugs, improve infrastructure and support customers when technical input is needed

• Expand our third-party integration marketplace

• Contribute to technical architecture planning and help evolve our foundations as the product scales

• Work closely with Product and Design to turn customer problems and ideas into high-quality product experiences

• Raise the engineering bar through strong technical judgement, thoughtful implementation and collaboration with other engineers

• Support our Sales and Marketing teams when engineering context or expertise is useful

What we’re looking for

• Multiple years of industry experience building full-stack web applications, ideally within SaaS

• Strong TypeScript knowledge and a genuine appreciation for the language

• Experience working across frontend and backend systems and shipping end-to-end features into production

• Strong technical judgement and experience contributing to architecture and technical direction

• An appreciation for design, usability and digital product craftsmanship

• Experience collaborating directly with Product and Design and a track record of delivering meaningful value to customers or users

• The ability to think beyond an individual implementation and consider how technical decisions affect the wider product and architecture

• A hands-on approach to leadership. You’re comfortable setting direction and raising the bar while continuing to build yourself

• The ability to balance speed, product quality and technical quality when making decisions

• A high degree of ownership and comfort contributing wherever engineering expertise can have the greatest impact

You may not be a great fit if

• You want an Engineering Lead role that takes you away from writing code. This is a hands-on position and you’ll continue building alongside the team

• You prefer specialising exclusively in frontend, backend or infrastructure rather than working across the stack

• You want to receive fully specified requirements rather than helping shape both the product and technical approach

• You’re more interested in technical complexity than the quality and usefulness of what customers ultimately experience

• You prefer making technical decisions in isolation rather than working closely with Product and Design

• You optimise exclusively for speed or technical perfection rather than making pragmatic trade-offs between the two

• You prefer focusing only on your immediate engineering responsibilities rather than supporting customers and the wider business when your expertise can help

Our tech stack

Our tech stack today consists of TypeScript, JavaScript, React, Node, Postgres and Redis. We use GitHub for code and continuous integration to deploy to Kubernetes on Google Cloud Platform. We have a public REST API and our browser client uses a realtime WebSocket API. We obsess over details and quality of the user facing features and their implementation. Yet we move fast by creating focus and leveraging high quality foundations.

This is an in-person role. Our team comes together in the office Monday through Thursday, while most of the team collaborates in person on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.

Package & Benefits

Early stage startups can be messy - we know that. We're putting effort in providing you with the best employee experience and a quality driven environment in exchange for trusting us.

• Market-leading compensation that reflects your value

• 25 days paid time off each year plus public holidays

• Share Options with 5-year exercise window so you don’t feel pressure to exercise if you leave

• Quarterly team events, and company offsites

• Top tier private coverage for health, vision and dental care

• A new MacBook and tools you need to do your best work

• Enhanced parental leave with up to 16 weeks for primary and 4 weeks for secondary

• Learning & development budget

Why Join Humaans Today?

HR tech is having its AI moment and we’re positioned to own it. Humaans started as a next-gen HRIS taking on large incumbents in a massive market. We’ve since evolved into something even bigger: an AI platform that sits across workforce data and automates the operational layer of HR entirely; the natural progression of what we’ve been building toward.

The product is highly differentiated. It’s built around a structured workforce data model that makes AI reliable in an HR context, something no one else has gotten right. Customers notice the difference immediately.

We’re backed by Y Combinator, Lachy Groom, Moonfire, Frontline Ventures, and operators who’ve built some of the most consequential software companies of the last decade: the founders of Slack, Figma, and Shopify, and Asana’s former CRO and Head of OpenAI International.

We’re a small team with an unapologetically high bar. It shows up in the product, in how we communicate, and in the standards we hold each other to.

Our Commitment to Diversity

At Humaans we’re looking for genuinely good people that are transparent and emphatic. We’re committed to providing equal opportunities, a diverse and inclusive work environment, and ensuring a fair interview process for everyone. You’re welcome to apply no matter your gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, civil or family status, age, disability, or race.

Privacy notice

We care about your privacy. When you apply for a role at Humaans, we’ll collect and process your personal data as part of our recruitment process. This includes things like your CV, contact details, and any other information you choose to share. We may also contact you about future opportunities. You can ask us to delete your data at any time. For more details, see our Privacy Policy.