Head of Engineering (Berlin, hybrid)

Tasks

What you'll do

• Grow your leads: Coach first-time team leads into confident managers, and manage your engineers directly with clear expectations and honest feedback
• Build the people basics: Set fair, consistent standards for performance, feedback, career growth and onboarding, much of it from scratch
• Unblock delivery: Find the real bottleneck, change the system and show that it worked, so delivery gets more predictable with the team we already have
• Own quality: Earn senior engineers' trust quickly and take real ownership of quality, so release decisions no longer depend on the CTO
• Connect up and across: Shape engineering strategy with the CTO, keep leadership updated on progress and risks, and turn strategy into what your teams actually work on
• Stay technically close: Weigh in on architecture and technical direction, and stay close enough to the code to make good calls

Requirements

What you'll need

• Experience: 8+ years in software engineering, including 5+ years managing engineering teams
• Leaders you've grown: You've turned senior engineers or team leads into managers, and can tell us who, how and what changed
• Delivery you've fixed: You've measurably improved how a team ships, without adding people to do it
• Technical credibility: Strong background in software development, architecture and systems design, in a TypeScript, React and Node.js stack. Senior engineers trust your calls
• People-first leadership: You get energy from growing people, and you've built teams others want to join

Interview process

• Recruiter interview (45 min)
• CTO & People interview (70 min)
• Product & delivery interview (45 min)
• Meeting the team (2 × 30 min)
• Bar raiser interview with our Head of Data, plus lunch with the team leads in our Berlin office (45 min + lunch)

Our core tech stack

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

You'll do well here if:

• You pick up problems nobody assigned you. If something's broken and no one has stepped up, you're the person who does
• You'd rather make the call and adjust than wait until you're certain. Speed is how we win
• You want to own a domain deeply enough that people rely on your judgement in it, whether or not you manage anyone
• You'll argue for your position and commit fully when the call goes the other way
• You care about details other people would call excessive. We hold a higher bar than most, on purpose
• You use AI constantly and still own every word you ship

Every new hire should raise the bar in some meaningful way, not just fill a seat. We hold to that, and it's why you'll be working with the most talented people from all over the world.

Benefits

• Real ownership: You own what you ship, end to end. Whether you lead a team or lead through craft, we back you to work on what matters most
• Work at the edge of AI and design: Kittl sits where AI, design and commerce meet. You'll be learning on the frontier, not reading about it
• Work-life balance: 30 vacation days a year, plus public holidays
• 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
• VESOP: Enrolment 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
• Hackathons: Quarterly hackathons to experiment with new ideas, push boundaries and build the next big thing
• Kittl Week: Each year, our global team gathers for a whole week to work, celebrate, get inspired and have fun

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Source: Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis), table; dl-de/by-2-0; StarIn's calculation

Posted Nov 01, 2026

Posted Nov 01, 2026