Engineering Manager

Engineering Manager (First-of-its-kind role)

Amsterdam (Hybrid, 2 days/week) or Remote from the Netherlands

Full-time | Start Date: ASAP

Is this how your team would describe you?

You don't just "run standups" — you build healthy teams that ship.

You notice tensions early, create clarity, and turn chaos into rhythm.

You care about people first, process second, and tech third — and you're strong enough to hold that line.

If that's you — we should talk.

Why this role?

This is Kaizo's first-ever Engineering Manager. Until now, engineers and leadership have juggled hiring, 1:1s, performance talks, release rituals, incident handling, and cross-team comms on top of delivery. It worked when we were tiny. It won't as we scale.

Your mission: own team health and operational excellence so engineering stays fast and sustainable.

You'll be the central point for people leadership, delivery rituals, and continuous improvement. You'll partner closely with our senior/principal engineers on architecture and technical direction, while you own the operating system of the org: cadence, communication, metrics, and accountability.

This role is intentionally people & process–heavy (think ~70/20/10: people/process/tech). Your "plus-one" could be QA, SRE/Platform, Security, or similar — something you can drive when the fires are out and the flywheel's spinning.

And yes, this is all inside an AI-native, product-led SaaS where reliability and quality matter.

Why Kaizo?

• AI-native platform in customer operations & QA, used by serious global teams
• Real ownership: you'll design and run the engineering operating model
• Low-ego, high-feedback culture; fast decisions, clear accountability
• Amsterdam HQ on the canals (hybrid), or remote from anywhere in NL

What you'll do

People & Team Health

• Run the core people cadence: weekly/monthly check-ins, semiannual performance reviews (ISO 27001 compliant), growth plans, and PIPs when needed
• Keep a live pulse on engagement, risk of churn, and development needs across engineers (and adjacent roles where relevant)
• Coach leads; make feedback normal, specific, and timely

Process & Delivery (your operating system)

• Own release hygiene: definitions of ready/done, release gates, and "no surprise" deploys
• Own quality & incident management: SLAs, P1/P2 playbooks, on-call, postmortems, follow-through in backlog
• Run retros end-to-end (prep facilitation action items follow-up)
• Drive cross-team communication (FE/BE/AI/Data) and knowledge sharing so nothing lives with "the only person who knows"
• Track delivery & reliability metrics (velocity, predictability, change failure rate, MTTR) and use them to improve, not punish

Partnering

• Work with Product on planning & prioritisation; protect capacity for platform improvements alongside customer commitments
• Support talent pipelines & hiring: define roles, run first-round interviews as the team's representative, help us land bar-raising hires
• Collaborate with principal/architects on how we scale systems; you keep the engine running while they drive the blueprint

Plus-one Ownership (10–20%)

• Lead an area aligned to your background (e.g., QA maturity, SRE/Platform, Security, Compliance tooling) — hands-on enough to make it real.

What we're looking for

Must-haves

• Experience as Senior Engineer / Tech Lead / Engineering Manager in SaaS B2B
• Proof you can build team health: 1:1 systems, reviews, growth paths, tough conversations
• Ownership of delivery rituals: releases, incidents, retros, metrics real improvements
• Strong cross-functional comms; you can reduce friction between Product, Commercial, and Engineering
• Pragmatic, data-driven decision-making; you measure, adjust, and move

Nice-to-haves

• Plus-one depth in QA, SRE/Platform, Security, or Compliance (ISO 27001 familiarity is a bonus)
• Experience maturing an org from "scrappy" to "consistent" without killing speed
• AI/LLM product exposure or high-usage, multi-tenant SaaS experience

Why you shouldn't apply

If you want to code full-time, avoid performance conversations, or rely on heavy process to feel safe — this won't be your happy place. This is an operational leadership role that leans into people, clarity, and momentum.

What it's like here

• Fast, candid, and human
• Lightweight rituals, high trust, zero micromanagement
• You'll be expected to bring structure and hold standards — nicely, but firmly

Equal Opportunities at Kaizo

We're building a diverse, inclusive team where everyone belongs. If you're not sure you tick every box, we still want to hear from you.