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.

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