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, keeping tooling, vendor management, on-call and platform support running so engineers never lose time to broken processes.

• Own engineering performance visibility, building and maintaining shared metrics infrastructure across investment tracking, shipping pace, and quality, surfacing signals before they become problems.

• Own progression, performance, and compensation alignment, keeping the framework current and driving salary band alignment with HR.

• Make hiring and onboarding fast and consistent across engineering managers, from interviewer calibration to reducing time to first meaningful contribution.

• Support and sharpen the engineering management layer, facilitating leadership sessions and driving strategic initiatives from decision to done, including stepping in as interim manager when needed.

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.

• See more about how we collect and process your personal data in our Privacy Notice https://kognity.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Kognity-Recruitment-Privacy-Notice_0326.pdf.