Job Description

About Kernel

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Kernel provides enterprise RevOps teams with AI-powered company data for their CRMs. We raised $14M in Series A funding from top VCs and operators at Plaid, OpenAI, and Slack to build an AI-native alternative to Dun & Bradstreet's entity and hierarchy data.


RevOps teams at Navan, Gong, Mistral, and AlphaSense use Kernel to run their organizations.


At Kernel, we process 7B+ tokens a day and run 1.8M+ agents daily, all on an architecture that's intentionally simple: one database, one queue. It's minimalism built for massive scale (For reference, Wikipedia has 2.3B tokens in the English wikipedia). Our queue processes a daily volume on par with the entire Visa network's transactions (~365M/day). All of which has been built by a small but mighty team of engineers.

The Role

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You'll be a player-coach engineering leader with a spike in technical strategy, working closely with the founders to drive the hiring roadmap. You'll own engineering delivery end-to-end - from developing exceptional engineers to setting technical direction - while helping the company grow from $3M to $30M ARR.


This is a hands-on leadership role. You'll spend roughly 30% of your time contributing code and 70% leading the team, with that ratio shifting as we scale.

Key Responsibilities

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Build, hire, and develop a high-performing engineering team Help set technical direction and architecture decisions Own engineering delivery with an emphasis on velocity Collaborate closely with Product on roadmap and prioritization Write code when needed so you'll stay close to the product

The opportunity

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We 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.

About You

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You have extensive experience in architecting enterprise-level systems, delivering on ambitious product visions, and building world class engineering teams. You have worked at high-growth businesses, and might have previously started your own company. You 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. You 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.

Essential Experience

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8+ years software engineering experience, with 2+ years leading engineering teams Track record of hiring and developing strong engineers Strong production systems background - you've built and scaled things that matter, and you've done something hardand lived to tell the tale Proven experience in distributed systems Experience operating autonomously in small, high-velocity environments - ideally in a startup

Nice-to-Have:

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Scaled an engineering team through a growth phase (5 20+ engineers), or from Series A to Series C Technical depth across the stack: NodeJS, Postgres, TypeScript, Kubernetes AI-driven or data-heavy product experience Understanding of LLMs (e.g., RAG, prompt engineering, evals) CRM data models or workflow automation knowledge

This role may not be for you if you:

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Insist on shipping pixel-perfect code Prefer managing from a distance without technical involvement Need extensive process and structure before making decisions

This role is definitely not for you:

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If you over-rely on AI coding tools (Cursor, Claude Code) to the point where you don't read or understand your own code If 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 If you prefer fully remote work If you don't like early-stage startup pace If you're seeking a purely 'hands-off' role

Tech Stack

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Backend:

AWS, NodeJS, TypeScript, Postgres

Frontend:

NextJS, TypeScript, Tailwind

You don't need to know everything, but you should be comfortable diving into any part of the stack.

What We Offer

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We will do our best to offer you a ride of a lifetime. It will not be easy, but it will be thrilling.

Salary:

140,000 - 200,000 + equity 24 days holiday per year + bank holidays 2 weeks work-from-anywhere Pension plan Top-spec equipment and central London office Free dinner at the office Team events and dinners Work directly with the founders to scale the systems that power enterprise AI

Team

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We are around 30 people with 7 engineers and 1 Product Manager, including:

Sam Houghton, Founding Engineer Eleanor Leung, Senior Engineer David Saltares, Senior Engineer Stefan Sabev, Head of Product Tom Ankers, Senior Engineer Willis Chou, Senior Engineer

Visas & Relocation

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We sponsor visas for exceptional candidates and provide relocation support for those moving to London.

Interview Process

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Stage 1:

30-minute introductory call covering your professional background and what you're looking for

Stage 2:

30-minute call with Marcus (Hiring manager) on ways of working

Stage 3:

Technical deep-dive (60 mins) exploring your architectural thinking and past technical decisions

Stage 4:

Leadership scenario interview (60 mins) in our London office - we'll discuss real challenges you'd face here

Final Stage:

Founders interview with the co-founders, Anders and Marcus, on values alignment and vision


Upon mutual fit: references and offer stage.


Compensation Range: 140K - 200K