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
------------
You are a T-shaped full stack engineer with a spike in backend engineering. You will work with product and engineering on the product overall and support our infrastructure so we can scale efficiently. You do not need to be a DevOps wizard, but experience with AWS and Kubernetes is helpful.
You are adaptable, take initiative and enjoy contributing at pace. The team is lean, the environment is low-structure and clear communication matters. You will own our back-end infrastructure from AWS to our workflow automations in n8n and help the company grow from
$3M
to
$30M ARR
. We are still early in building our infrastructure, so you will play a key role in shaping what we build and how we build it.
What You'll Be Doing
------------------------
Owning and scaling Kernel's back-end infrastructure (AWS, NodeJS, Postgres, n8n)
Designing systems that process millions of accounts, terabytes of data and thousands of parallel executions
Building reliable, scalable data pipelines and services for enterprise customers
Rapidly shipping features to users and to our internal team
Continuously evaluating code, infrastructure and processes to find improvements
Automating manual processes to increase speed and reliability
Sharing feedback on roadmap direction and ideas on bets to place and potential solutions
###
More specifically you will be:
Ensuring a world-class, scalable back-end infrastructure
Working daily with the team to move us toward our next goal
Implementing mass-action workflows that clean, enrich and complete CRM data
Establishing robust monitoring, observability and reliability practices
Partnering with product and solutions engineering to translate business logic into safe mass actions in customer CRMs
What You Bring
------------------
6+ years of software or product engineering experience
Strong experience building and scaling production systems
Comfort with backend engineering (NodeJS, Postgres, TypeScript)
Strong understanding of
LLM
application development patterns (
RAG
, prompt engineering, consistency testing) - either through production experience or demonstrated personal projects. If you're new to LLMs but have shipped complex production systems in other domains and are comfortable rapidly learning new technologies, we'd still love to hear from you.
Ability to operate autonomously in a small, high-velocity team
Excellent communication and collaboration skills
Some experience with Kubernetes or distributed systems
###
It is a plus if you also have:
Experience working on AI-driven or data-heavy products
Frontend experience (NextJS, React, TypeScript)
Understanding of CRM data models or workflow automation
This role may not be for you if you:
----------------------------------------
Need lots of structure
Will only ship pixel-perfect results before releasing
Need a fully fleshed-out spec to code
Are heavily indexed on DevOps and have spent less time on software engineering
This role is definitely not for you if you:
-----------------------------------------------
Prefer fully remote work (this role requires at least 3 days a week in the office)
Do not enjoy the intensity of an early-stage startup
Have side hustles or other projects
Want to manage a team
What We Offer
-----------------
We will do our best to offer you a ride of a lifetime. It will not be easy, but it will be thrilling.
Salary:
120,000 - 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
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
-----------------------
We sponsor visas for exceptional candidates and provide relocation support for those moving to London.
Interview Process
---------------------
Stage 1: Introductory Call (50 minutes)
A conversation with a key member of our hiring team. You'll receive an overview of Kernel and discuss your motivations, strengths, and background.
Stage 2: Hiring Manager Call (30 minutes)
A call with Marcus, the Hiring Manager, focused on ways of working and collaboration.
Stage 3: Take-Home Task ( 2 hours)
A short take-home exercise based on a real Kernel problem.
Stage 4: Technical Interview (90 minutes)
An onsite interview at our London office to review your solution and walk through your technical thinking.
Final Stage: Founders Interview
A conversation with Anders (CEO) and Marcus focused on values alignment and long-term vision.
Following Mutual Fit: Reference checks and offer stage.
Compensation Range: 120K - 200K
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