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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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 hard and lived to tell the tale
Proven experience in distributed systems
Experience operating autonomously in small, high-velocity environments - ideally in a startup
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
Insist on shipping pixel-perfect code
Prefer managing from a distance without technical involvement
Need extensive process and structure before making decisions
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
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.
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
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
We sponsor visas for exceptional candidates and provide relocation support for those moving to London.
Stage 1: Introductory Call (45 minutes) | An introductory conversation covering your professional background and what you’re looking for in your next role.
Stage 2: Hiring Manager Call (30 minutes) | A conversation with Marcus focused on ways of working and team collaboration.
Stage 3: Take-home Task (≤ 2 hours)
Stage 4: Technical Interview (60-90 minutes) | A follow-up discuss on your take-home submission, followed by a discussion exploring your architectural thinking and past technical decisions.
Final Stage: Founders Interview (45min) | A conversation with our co-founders, Anders and Marcus, focused on values alignment and long-term vision.
Upon mutual fit: references and offer stage.
kernel