Head of Engineering (Berlin, hybrid)

A little about us

• AI-native design: Kittl is becoming the AI-native, operating system for creative businesses. We give small brands the creative firepower to look credible and get from idea to launch-ready, with no agency and no design team
• Rapid growth: 11 million users since 2022
• Diverse team: 120+ people from 30+ countries, with offices in Berlin and Düsseldorf and teammates working remotely
• Truly product-led company: Engineers, Product Managers and Designers sit at the core of what we build
• Strong backing: Raised over $50M, led by IVP with Left Lane Capital and Speedinvest. IVP has also backed Figma, Slack, and Dropbox

Learn more: www.kittl.com/career

Your role at Kittl

As Head of Engineering, you’ll lead the people side of our engineering organization.

You'll own people leadership and delivery across these teams, reporting to the CTO. Your reports are a group of engineers plus a couple of team leads. You'll manage the ICs directly, help growing the team leads into stronger leaders, and keep delivery moving across the board.

You'll partner closely with Product and Marketing to manage engineering capacity and make sure what we build lines up with where the company is going.

What you'll do

• Lead the team: Manage the engineers reporting to you directly, and coach your team leads
• Streamline execution: Audit and improve development processes to eliminate bottlenecks, reduce waste, and increase team predictability and velocity
• Set people standards: Define consistent and fair approaches to performance, feedback, career growth, and onboarding, while ensuring teams are structured effectively and people are aligned to the highest-impact opportunities
• Connect up and across: Give leadership clear, regular updates on progress and risks, and translate company strategy into what your teams actually work on
• Stay technically sharp: Weigh in on architecture and technical direction with your teams, and keep close enough to the code to make good calls and earn trust
• Support the vision: Work with the CTO to shape and communicate engineering strategy, and help carry it through the org

What you’ll need

• Experience: 8+ years in software engineering, with at least 5+ years managing engineering teams
• Growing leaders: Experience developing senior engineers and team leads, and a readiness to grow them into managers over time
• People-first leadership: You get energy from growing people, and you've built teams others want to join
• Technical depth: Strong background in software development, architecture, and systems design. You can effectively steer technical strategy, uphold engineering standards, and empower teams to own execution
• Stack: Comfortable with TypeScript and a React / Node.js stack, familiar with modern frameworks

Interview process

• Recruiter interview (45 min)
• CTO interview (60 min)
• Product Lead interview (45 min)
• Meeting the team (back-to-back, 30 min + 30 min)
• Bar raiser interview with CEO (45 min)

Our core tech stack

TypeScript, Python, Node.js, React, Next.js, Postgres, Pulumi, k8s

We are looking for someone

• Who leads with care and still holds a high bar
• Who takes extreme ownership and gets things done
• Who's driven to make an impact and challenge the status quo
• Who focuses on outcomes over output - ensuring the team delivers actual business value, not just lines of code

Benefits

• Maximise your impact: Real ownership of what you ship. Whether you lead a team or lead through craft, we back you to do the work that matters most
• Shape AI-native creative work: Kittl sits where AI, design, and commerce meet. You'll build the tools that decide what professional looks like for our next million users
• AI enablement: We use AI across the company, not just in the product
• Passionate team: Quarterly hackathons for experimenting with new concepts, pushing boundaries, and delivering the next big thing
• Kittl Week: Each year, our global team gathers for a whole week, to work, celebrate, get inspired, and have fun
• Work-life balance: 30 vacation days a year, plus public holidays
• Flexible hours: Core hours are 11am to 5pm CET. How you build the rest of your day is up to you
• Hybrid working style: 3 days a week in our office in the heart of Prenzlauer Berg, the rest of the week from home
• Remote work: On top of that, work from anywhere in the world for up to 50 days (10 weeks) a year, as long as you're reachable during core hours
• VESOP: Enrollment in our Virtual Employee Stock Option Plan. When Kittl grows in value, you share in it
• Lunch: Daily chef-prepared meals in the office
• Mobility: Your monthly BVG ticket, fully covered
• Health & fitness: Urban Sports Club M membership
• Learning & development: Annual L&D budget for your professional growth
• German classes: Online group courses at every level

🌈 At Kittl, we embrace diversity and value every team member's unique background, identity, and experience. We're all about respect, honesty, and inclusivity. Together, we create a safe and supportive work environment where everyone thrives. Join us on this exciting journey of making our company and product even better!