{"id":3042991,"url":"https://alion.io/job/kernel-engineering-manager","title":"Engineering Manager","company":{"id":456080,"name":"Kernel","domain":"kernel.ai","url":"https://alion.io/company/kernel-9","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":null},"role":"Leadership","role_family":"Leadership","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["London, United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":140000,"max":180000,"currency":"GBP","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":240944},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":8,"visa_sponsorship":true,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Canva","optional":false},{"name":"OpenAI","optional":false},{"name":"Slack","optional":false},{"name":"AWS","optional":true},{"name":"Claude Code","optional":true},{"name":"ClickHouse","optional":true},{"name":"Cursor","optional":true},{"name":"JavaScript","optional":true},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":true},{"name":"Next.js","optional":true},{"name":"Node JS","optional":true},{"name":"PostgreSQL","optional":true},{"name":"Prompt Engineering","optional":true},{"name":"RAG","optional":true},{"name":"React.js","optional":true},{"name":"Tailwind CSS","optional":true},{"name":"TypeScript","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-21T19:31:44Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-21","last_verified_at":"2026-10-22T09:40:14Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":0,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":0},"description":"About Kernel\nAgents are starting to sell, buy and operate on behalf of companies. But before an agent can close a deal, qualify an account, route a lead or assess risk, it has to answer a basic question: which company is this?\nToday, that answer is messy, and no one answers it reliably. Business identity lives across CRMs, ERPs and third-party datasets full of duplicates, missing parent companies, stale addresses and incorrect enrichment. The cost shows up across the enterprise: sales teams miss revenue opportunities because they lack the right account context; operations teams take on avoidable exposure because risk signals are fragmented or wrong; and finance teams end up chasing, writing off, or defaulting on bad debt that should have been caught earlier.\nHumans have worked around that mess for years. Agents cannot. They need a reliable business identity layer they can trust.\nKernel is building that layer: the business registry for agents. We issue a permanent KERN ID for every business, plus the context an agent needs to act on it. Ops, data and revenue teams at Gong, Legora, Mistral, Canva and Checkout already use Kernel on their own systems. Agents are next, and there will be far more of them.\nWe have raised $20M from top VCs and operators at Plaid, OpenAI, Slack and others, and we are growing 5x YoY.\nThe Role\nYou'll be a player-coach engineering leader with a spike in technical strategy, you'll own engineering delivery for your team end-to-end - from developing exceptional engineers to solving some of our most difficult engineering problems & setting technical direction.\nThis is a hands-on leadership role. You'll spend roughly 20% of your time contributing code and 80% leading your team, with that ratio shifting as we scale.\nKey Responsibilities\nBuild, hire, and develop a high-performing engineering team\n\nHelp set technical direction and architecture decisions\n\nWork with the engineering to tackle some of our most difficult problems\n\nOwn engineering delivery with an emphasis on velocity\n\nCollaborate closely with Product on roadmap and prioritisation\n\nWrite code when needed so you'll stay close to the product\n\nThe Opportunity\nWe 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.\nAbout You\nYou have extensive experience in architecting enterprise-level systems, delivering on ambitious product visions, and building world class engineering teams.\n\nYou have worked at high-growth businesses, and might have previously started your own company.\n\nYou 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.\n\nYou 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.\n\nEssential Experience\n8+ years software engineering experience\n\nTrack record of hiring and developing strong engineers\n\nStrong production systems background - you've built and scaled things that matter, and you’ve done something hard and lived to tell the tale\n\nProven experience in distributed systems\n\nExperience operating autonomously in small, high-velocity environments - ideally in a startup\n\nExperience working in a data-focused company or closely alongside a data engineering/ML team - data is core to what we're building at Kernel, and you will play a key role in shaping how we grow that capability\n\nNice-to-Have:\nScaled an engineering team through a growth phase (5 → 20+ engineers), or from Series A to Series C\n\nTechnical depth across the stack: NodeJS, Postgres, TypeScript, Kubernetes AI-driven or data-heavy product experience\n\nUnderstanding of LLMs (e.g., RAG, prompt engineering, evals)\n\nCRM data models or workflow automation knowledge\n\nHands-on Data Engineering or ML Engineering experience - as data becomes an increasingly large part of what we do, this would be a great asset for us to have\n\nThis role may not be for you if you:\nInsist on shipping pixel-perfect code\n\nPrefer managing from a distance without technical involvement\n\nNeed extensive process and structure before making decisions\n\nThis role is definitely not for you:\nIf you over-rely on AI coding tools (Cursor, Claude Code) to the point where you don’t read or understand your own code\n\nIf 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\n\nIf you prefer fully remote work\n\nIf you don’t like early-stage startup pace\n\nIf you’re seeking a purely ‘hands-off’ role\n\nTech Stack\nBackend: AWS, NodeJS, TypeScript, Postgres, Clickhouse, Kubernetes\n\nFrontend: NextJS, TypeScript, Tailwind\n\nYou don't need to know everything, but you should be comfortable diving into any part of the stack.\nWhat We Offer\nWe will do our best to offer you a ride of a lifetime. It will not be easy, but it will be thrilling.\nSalary: £130,000 - £170,000 + equity\n\n24 days holiday per year + bank holidays\n\n£450 Monthly Office Dinner Allowance\n\n2 weeks work-from-anywhere\n\nGenerous parental leave policy\n\nPension plan\n\nTop-spec equipment and central London office\n\nTeam events and dinners\n\nWork directly with the founders to scale the systems that power enterprise AI\n\nHigh-autonomy, high-trust environment with a small team shipping at pace\n\nVisas & Relocation\nWe sponsor visas for exceptional candidates and provide relocation support for those moving to London.\nInterview Process\nStage 1: Introductory Call (45 minutes)\nAn introductory conversation covering your professional background and what you’re looking for in your next role.\nStage 2: Hiring Manager Call (30 minutes)\nA conversation with Marcus focused on ways of working and team collaboration.\nStage 3: Technical Deep Dive (60 minutes)\nAn in-depth discussion exploring your architectural thinking and past technical decisions.\nStage 4: Leadership Scenario Interview (60 minutes)\nAn onsite interview at our London office, where we’ll walk through real challenges you’d likely face in the role.\nFinal Stage: Founders Interview\nA conversation with our co-founders, Anders and Marcus, focused on values alignment and long-term vision.\nUpon mutual fit: references and offer stage.","description_format":"text","description_chars":6444,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":8,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity","Parental leave"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":true,"industries":["Data Quality & Observability","B2B Company & Contact Data"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-21T23:25:02Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"GB","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"Licensed UK visa sponsor (Skilled Worker)","filings_12m":null,"filings_prev_12m":null,"green_card_filings_12m":null,"median_offered_wage_usd":null,"route":"Skilled Worker","cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-10-22T06:27:10+00:00","sources":["UK Home Office: register of licensed sponsors (workers)"],"filings_for_role_12m":0}],"liveness":{"score":90,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.903,"p_room":1,"age_days":0,"expected_fill_days":27,"reasons":["conf:0","velocity","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-10-22T06:10:10Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":240944,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/kernel-engineering-manager","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/kernel-engineering-manager.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-22T11:03:47Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":8704,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-23T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":456080},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=456080"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fkernel-engineering-manager"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fkernel-engineering-manager"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fkernel-engineering-manager"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/kernel-engineering-manager\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fkernel-engineering-manager"}]}