{"id":912727,"url":"https://alion.io/job/ki-group-engineering-manager-data-ai-all-genders","title":"Engineering Manager – Data & AI (all genders)","company":{"id":3894500,"name":"KI Group","domain":"ki-performance.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/ki-group-2","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Recruitee","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":79,"open_postings":7,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.857,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-11-11T05:49:22Z"}},"role":"Leadership","role_family":"Leadership","seniority":"lead","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Cologne, Germany"],"countries":["DE"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":89000,"max_usd":172000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":16},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"Databricks","optional":false},{"name":"Human-in-the-Loop","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2025-04-03T11:45:25Z","employer_posted_date":"2025-04-03","last_verified_at":"2026-11-11T18:48:45Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":587,"trust":{"level":"stale","repost_count":1,"flags":["stale"],"days_open":586},"description":"Become our new Engineering Manager - Data & AI (all genders)\nAs an Engineering Manager - Data & AI, you are the system and outcome owner for complex, data-driven and agentic solutions. You hold end-to-end responsibility for technical conception, architectural decisions, implementation depth, and the real, measurable business impact delivered to our clients.\nThis role is deliberately forward-deployed: close to the business problem, close to stakeholders, and close to the engineering work. You combine senior engineering judgment with clear technical decision authority, people leadership, and accountability for delivery outcomes.\nYou are not a pure people manager nor a detached architect. You are a hands-on technical leader who ensures that systems are coherent, production-ready, and valuable in real-world enterprise environments.\nYour Responsibilities\nSystem & Architecture Ownership\nDesign, evolve, and take ownership of complex Data & AI systems, including agentic architectures, orchestration patterns, integrations, and governance mechanisms.\n\nDefine architectural guardrails, technical standards, and system-level trade-offs across scalability, cost, reliability, and maintainability.\n\nIdentify and manage failure modes, fallback strategies, safety boundaries, and human-in-the-loop concepts for production-grade AI systems.\n\nEnsure that individual technical contributions come together into a coherent, consistent, and operable end-to-end system.\n\nEnd-to-End Outcome Accountability\nOwn the technical feasibility, implementation quality, and achieved business impact of delivered solutions.\n\nMake and defend sound engineering and architecture decisions under technological, domain, and organizational uncertainty.\n\nEnsure that responsibility does not stop at design or deployment, but extends to stable operation and sustained customer value.\n\nEngineering-Driven Delivery & Hands-On Contribution\nActively contribute to system design, agent design, protocols, and integrations - this is not a pure steering or review role.\n\nCo-own and prioritize the engineering backlog, translating business goals into clear technical user stories together with Senior Engineers.\n\nSequence and steer implementation based on system dependencies, risk, and outcome impact.\n\nSpend a significant portion of time embedded in projects, balancing leadership with hands-on technical involvement.\n\nPeople Leadership & Team Development\nLead, mentor, and develop a team of senior engineers, domain engineers, and data experts.\n\nFoster a culture of ownership, technical excellence, and system thinking.\n\nPartner with People Experience to shape career paths, mentoring, performance development, and capability growth.\n\nRecruit, retain, and grow top-tier engineering talent in Data, Cloud, and AI domains.\n\nAct as a role model for technical responsibility, clarity in decision-making, and outcome focus.\n\nStandards, Reuse & Productization\nEnsure the use and continuous improvement of existing frameworks, templates, and architectural standards.\n\nIdentify and drive reusable system, agent, and architecture patterns beyond individual projects.\n\nContribute to the long-term productization and scalability of KI performance’s Data & AI offerings.\n\nGo-Live Readiness, Stability & Operations Alignment\nOwn go-live readiness, stabilization phases, and the technical transition into sustainable operations.\n\nWork closely with Cloud AI Architects and QA Engineers to align on reliability, security, cost control, monitoring, and quality gates.\n\nDecide when systems are production-ready based on business-critical quality criteria.\n\nBusiness Development & Client Ownership\nAct as technical owner and trusted partner for key customer accounts and strategic engagements.\n\nSupport pre-sales and business development by shaping technical solution concepts, architectures, and delivery approaches.\n\nContribute to effort estimation, feasibility assessments, and technical risk evaluation in proposals.\n\nBuild and maintain long-term client relationships, managing expectations and ensuring sustainable value delivery.\n\nRepresent KI performance as a credible technical authority in customer workshops, decision forums, and executive discussions.\n\nRequirements\nYour Profile - Required Skills\nExperience & Mindset\nA very senior engineering profile with a strong focus on system thinking, architecture, and ownership, not isolated feature development.\n\nDeep experience in Data, Cloud, and/or AI systems, ideally in complex, production-grade enterprise environments.\n\nA clear outcome-oriented mindset: responsibility ends with stable customer value, not with deployment.\n\nTechnical Expertise\nStrong background in cloud-native data and AI architectures, ideally with platforms such as Microsoft Azure and Databricks.\n\nProven ability to design end-to-end systems, including data pipelines, agent orchestration, integrations, monitoring, and governance.\n\nHigh confidence in making and communicating technical trade-offs across performance, cost, risk, and maintainability.\n\nLeadership & Communication\nDemonstrated ability to lead senior engineers, earn trust, and drive alignment without micromanagement.\n\nExcellent communication and facilitation skills in technical, cross-functional, and customer-facing settings.\n\nComfortable representing and defending technical decisions towards engineering teams, product leaders, management, and clients.\n\nLanguage & Mobility\nFluent in English and German, written and spoken.\n\nWillingness to travel (up to ~30%) to work closely with customers and stakeholders.\n\nWhy Join KI performance?\nShape and own real-world, production-grade Data & AI systems with tangible business impact.\n\nWork in a role with true technical decision authority and end-to-end responsibility.\n\nCombine deep engineering work, people leadership, and business development in one senior role.\n\nBe part of a culture that values ownership, clarity, and technical excellence over hype.\n\nActively influence how KI performance positions itself as a leader in the Data & AI ecosystem.\n\nAbout KI performance\nWe transform how companies work with data, preparing them for the future of artificial intelligence. With our expertise in data platforms and AI-powered solutions, we create measurable business value-always with a clear focus on strategy and impact.\nOur projects range from global data platforms to cutting-edge Gen AI applications, directly contributing to the success of leading DAX-listed companies. By leveraging the latest technologies, we set new standards in digital transformation and collaborate closely with Microsoft, Databricks, and our KI Group ecosystem to develop sustainable and future-ready solutions.\nOur culture is shaped by forward-thinking, curious, and open-minded professionals who actively shape the digital world. To maintain this dynamic environment, we place great value on diversity, innovation, and close teamwork. If you want to learn more about our culture and benefits, visit our careers page.\nDifferent perspectives make better teams.\nWe welcome applications from everyone, regardless of gender identity, ethnic or social background, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation. What matters to us is what you bring to the team and what you want to build with us.\nReady to shape the future of data-driven business models with us?\nApply now-we look forward to hearing from you!","description_format":"text","description_chars":7392,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[{"language":"German","level":"Advanced (C1)","optional":false},{"language":"English","level":"Advanced (C1)","optional":false}]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Artificial Intelligence","AI Agents","AI Consulting & Integration"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-14T17:22:22Z"},{"event":"reopen","at":"2026-10-08T02:43:08Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":3,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":0.4,"p_active":0.255,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":586,"expected_fill_days":31,"reasons":["seen:586","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-11-11T05:49:22Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/ki-group-engineering-manager-data-ai-all-genders","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/ki-group-engineering-manager-data-ai-all-genders.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-11T18:57:24Z","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":36524,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-12T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01,"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":3894500},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=3894500"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fki-group-engineering-manager-data-ai-all-genders"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":2,"usd":0.2},"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%2Fki-group-engineering-manager-data-ai-all-genders"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01},"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%2Fki-group-engineering-manager-data-ai-all-genders"},{"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/ki-group-engineering-manager-data-ai-all-genders\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fki-group-engineering-manager-data-ai-all-genders"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":912727}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"ki-performance.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":912727},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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