Head of Engineering Operations

This is a chance to build and own the operating system behind Kognity's entire engineering organisation, sitting between the CTO's strategy and the day-to-day reality of every engineering manager and engineer, with a mandate that spans tooling, hiring, progression and culture change across the whole function.

We're a 125-person EdTech scale-up powering learning in 120+ countries, helping students and teachers thrive through an intelligent platform that combines rich, interactive pedagogy with smart AI and data.

Why join Kognity?

• Work on problems that matter – Your work directly influences the lives of teachers and students in over 100 countries. The scale is global, and the outcomes are tangible.

• High ownership, high expectations – You are trusted to take initiative, make decisions and drive outcomes. Responsibility comes early, accountability is real, and results matter.

• A fast-moving, high-performing team – You will work with smart, driven colleagues across the globe on complex problems. Standards and expectations are high, feedback is direct, and the pace is fast.

• Continuous growth is the baseline – Everyone is expected and supported to learn quickly, improve constantly and raise their own bar. If you enjoy responsibility, momentum and meaningful challenge, you will thrive here.

What you'll do:

• Own the engineering operating system: tooling, budget, vendor contracts, access reviews, on-call and platform support, so engineers never lose time to broken processes.

• Own performance visibility and data quality: build and maintain the metrics infrastructure that gives the CTO and engineering managers a shared, trusted view of shipping pace, investment and team health.

• Own progression, performance and compensation alignment: keep the framework current, facilitate calibration, and drive salary band alignment with HR.

• Make hiring and onboarding fast, consistent and low friction: own process, interviewer calibration and time-to-hire across engineering teams.

• Support and sharpen the engineering manager layer, driving strategic and cultural change from decision to operating reality, and stepping in as interim EM when gaps open.

What we're looking for:

• A strong engineering background as a senior engineer, principal engineer or architect, with the credibility to earn trust from senior engineers quickly.

• Experience leading and managing people and performing teams, potentially as a CTO or VP in a smaller organisation.

• A systems thinker with a bias for simplification: someone who can find the version of a process or framework that's 60% simpler and 90% as good.

• The ability to drive change across teams without formal authority, building alignment through credibility, relationships and clear thinking.

• A passion for AI and a drive to experiment with new tools to enhance creativity, decisions, and execution.

How we hire

1. Discovery call with a Recruiter

2. Hiring manager discussion

3. Case study

4. Values discussion

5. Leadership talk

6. References

Every qualified person will be evaluated regardless of age, gender, identity, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability status or religion. We're committed to building a diverse, inclusive team and welcome people of all backgrounds, experiences, perspectives, and abilities.

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