Engineering Manager

QUICK SUMMARY Lead a full-stack team building distributed, API-first systems on AWS. Player-coach role driving scalable architecture, reliable delivery, and high-performing engineers. At this time, we are unable to sponsor employment visas for this role. WHO WE ARE Kin makes life simpler, more affordable, and better for homeowners — especially in the places where climate risks, rising costs, and outdated systems make it hardest. We start with smarter homeowners insurance and expand to everything homeowners need to thrive. Using data, technology, and thoughtful human support, we’re building products that are clear, fair, and help homeowners feel confident — so homeowners aren’t left behind when they need help most. Founded in 2016, Kin is a remote-first employer with Kinfolk across more than 35 states. We serve customers in 13 states (and counting). Our disciplined growth, strong customer satisfaction, and focus on long-term sustainability fosters outstanding growth, attracts marquee investors, and earns recognition and accolades, including: - Built In Chicago's Best Places to Work, Midsize Companies (2021-2026) - Forbes' America's Best Startup Employers (2021-2024) - Inc. 5000 Fastest-Growing Private Companies - Forbes’ Fintech 50 - Great Places to Work Certified (2024-2026) Most importantly, we’re building Kin to be a place where people do meaningful work with real impact — for our customers, our communities, and each other. We're excited to tell you more about how you can contribute to our rapid growth, strong unit economics, profitability, and excellent customer ratings. To learn more about how we work and what we’re building, visit kin.com http://kin.com and see how we work https://www.linkedin.com/company/kin-insurance/life/kin/. THE OPPORTUNITY We’re looking for a passionate, entrepreneurial Engineering Manager to help us scale our product architecture and elevate our engineering execution. As Kin continues to grow, we’re evolving from monolithic systems toward distributed, modular services — and we need a hands-on leader who can guide that transformation while delivering customer-facing innovation. This role exists at a pivotal moment: we’re balancing rapid product development with long-term system reliability, performance, and scalability. You’ll lead a full-stack team across front-end and back-end systems, partnering closely with Product to ship roadmap features while strengthening architecture and engineering standards. YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES - Lead and develop a high-performing full-stack engineering team, fostering ownership, accountability, and continuous growth - Serve as a hands-on player-coach, contributing meaningful production code while setting technical direction - Drive delivery of roadmap initiatives from concept through production with predictable, high-quality execution - Champion API-first design and schema-first development practices (OpenAPI/Swagger, contract testing, interface-driven development) - Guide the decomposition of monolithic systems into modular, distributed services with clear ownership boundaries - Establish best practices for observability, resilience, and distributed communication (tracing, retries, idempotency, error handling) - Lead architectural discussions to ensure long-term maintainability, reliability, and performance - Partner cross-functionally with Product, PMO, and other engineering teams to align technical strategy with business priorities - Participate in recruiting, interviewing, and hiring to strengthen the engineering organization SUCCESS IN THIS ROLE In your first 6–12 months at Kin, success is less about checking boxes and more about the impact you create. You’ll use your skills and judgment to take ownership of meaningful work, improve how we operate, and help move Kin’s mission forward. Along the way, you’ll deliver outcomes that make a real difference for both Kinfolk and the homeowners we serve. By the end of your first year, you should feel confident in your role, trusted as an owner, and proud of the progress you’ve helped make. - Your team consistently delivers roadmap initiatives with improved predictability, quality, and reduced production incidents - Core services have been redesigned or evolved toward modular, API-first architectures with clear service ownership and scalability - Engineering best practices for observability, distributed communication, and reliability are consistently adopted across your team - Engineers on your team demonstrate measurable growth in technical capability, ownership, and cross-functional collaboration WHAT YOU’LL BRING Core Experience & Technical Skills - Minimum 8 years of hands-on software development experience with strong computer science fundamentals - Proven experience managing or leading a team of engineers in a fast-paced environment - Demonstrated success acting as a player-coach who contributes meaningfully to the codebase - Experience building distributed systems and decomposing monoliths into modular services - Hands-on experience with API-first and schema-first workflows (OpenAPI/Swagger, contract testing, interface-driven development) - Experience with relational and NoSQL databases, message queues/brokers, and distributed system design patterns - Ability to design systems with clear service ownership, reliability, and modularity - Excellent command of the full SDLC: analysis, design, development, testing, deployment, and support - Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to convey complex technical concepts clearly Nice to have - Experience with modern JavaScript frameworks (React, Angular, or Vue) - Familiarity with BI or big-data technologies such as Looker or BigTable - Experience with Ruby on Rails or similar backend frameworks - Exposure to regulated industries such as insurance or financial services HOW WE HIRE We believe a great hiring experience should be clear, respectful, and human. 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