Lead Engineer, Engineering Productivity
•Neara· 22h
💻 Engineering⏰ Full-time🎯 Lead / Principal🇦🇺 Sydney, Australia
22h ago
Kin·6 days ago
Kin is redesigning insurance to be smarter, faster, and centered on the customer. We use intelligent pricing, offer seamless bundling, and make every step (from purchasing, servicing to claims) simple and friction-free, especially in the places traditional insurers often ignore.
We empower people to protect what matters most, starting with their homes and expanding to all they value, in a world where climate risks, rising costs, and outdated systems leave too many behind. Our approach has fostered amazing growth, attracted marquee investors, and earned us accolades, including being named to:
Built In Chicago's Best Places to Work, Midsize Companies (2021-2025).
Forbes' America's Best Startup Employers (2021- 2024, Ranked #37 in 2024).
Inc. 5000 Fastest-Growing Private Companies.
Forbes’ Fintech 50.
Simply put, our people are what make us great – we need forward-thinking, inspired game-changers like you to join us in our mission.
We are looking for a passionate, entrepreneurial, and hands-on Engineering Manager. You will guide a full-stack team across front-end and back-end systems to drive innovation in product development while improving performance, scalability, and maintainability. You should be comfortable working with distributed teams, confident in your leadership skills, and motivated by the challenge of owning technical delivery in a fast-paced environment.
As an Engineering Manager, you set the tone for how your team collaborates, grows, and delivers. We expect you to lead with empathy, clarity, and accountability. You’ll coach engineers through technical and professional development, foster a culture of high ownership, ensure predictable execution, and partner closely with product leaders to balance innovation with reliability. Leading by example, you must embody the behaviors we value: open communication, thoughtful decision-making, and an unwavering commitment to quality.
Serving as a hands-on engineering leader and trusted technical expert
Managing, mentoring and coaching a small team of talented engineers
Collaborating closely with Product Management to define, refine, and maintain your team’s roadmap
Driving your team to innovate while delivering roadmap features with agility and high quality
Writing clean, maintainable, and efficient code
Leading pair programming sessions and providing technical mentorship to junior and mid-level engineers
Leading architectural and design discussions to ensure long-term maintainability, including:
Championing API-first development practices, ensuring services are designed through well-defined contracts before implementation
Guiding the team in breaking apart monolithic patterns and moving toward distributed, modular architectures
Overseeing the design and evolution of service boundaries, ensuring systems are loosely coupled and scalable
Participating in agile ceremonies: daily standups, sprint planning, and retrospectives
Collaborating with cross-functional partners across Product, PMO and other engineering teams
Executing quickly and effectively to take ideas from concept to production
Maintaining high availability and responding quickly to production incidents or outages
Representing your team and product line in cross-functional discussions and planning sessions
Participating in engineering recruiting, interviewing, and hiring processes
8+ years of hands-on software development experience with strong computer science fundamentals
Proven leadership experience managing or leading a team of engineers
Experience acting as a “player-coach” who contributes meaningfully to the codebase
Strong experience building distributed systems and decomposing monoliths into services
Hands-on experience with API-first design, including schema-first workflows (OpenAPI/Swagger), contract testing, and interface-driven development
Experience with AWS cloud architecture, including lambdas, event-driven patterns, serverless databases, and IaC
Ability to design systems with clear service ownership, reliability, and modularity
Experience establishing best practices for distributed communication, observability, and error handling (e.g., tracing, retries, idempotency)
Experience with relational and NoSQL databases, message queues/brokers, and distributed system patterns
Strong communication skills and the ability to convey complex technical or product concepts
Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, iterative development environment
Excellent command of the full SDLC: analysis, design, development, testing, deployment, and support
Familiarity with modern JS frameworks (React, Angular, Vue)
Experience with BI or big-data technologies such as Looker or BigTable
Experience with Ruby on Rails or similar frameworks
Exposure to regulated industries or financial/insurance products
Oh, and don’t worry, we’ve got you covered!
This role is eligible for our comprehensive benefits program, which includes standard coverage and additional supplemental benefits.
This role is available and may represent a new position.
We use AI-enabled tools to sort applications based on job-related criteria and help with noting-taking during the interview process. A human always decides who moves forward.
#LI-REMOTE
For Sales Agents and Customer Service Agents: These roles sit in any of the following 30 states: AL, AZ, CO, FL, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MO, MT, NC, NE, NM, NV, NY, OH, OK, PA, SC, TN, TX, UT, VT, VA, WA, and WI.
For remote technical positions located in Canada, we are only able to hire individuals who reside in Ontario. Applicants must be able to live and work full-time in Ontario to be considered.
For all other positions, these roles can sit in any of the following 40 states: AL, AR, AZ, CA (exempt only), CO, CT, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, MA, ME, MD, MI, MN, MO, MT, NC, NE, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VT, VA, WA, and WI. Please only apply if you are able to live and work full-time in one of the states listed above.
State locations and specifics are subject to change as our hiring requirements shift.
Kin is the only pure-play, direct-to-consumer digital insurer focused on the growing home insurance market. We make policies convenient and affordable through a technology platform that delivers a seamless user experience, customized options for coverage, and fast, high-quality claims service. Kin is a fully licensed carrier that offers coverage through its reciprocal exchanges which are owned by its policyholders. To learn more, visit www.kin.com.
Kin is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer. We don't just accept difference – we honor it, nurture it, and celebrate it. We don’t discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. Kin welcomes and encourages applications from people with disabilities. Accommodations are available on request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process. If you require accommodation, please contact us by sending an email to [email protected]